Literature survey to the materials used in laser-assisted additive manufacturing processes for the production of nuclear materials

In this research, we focussed on producing nuclear products through the most rapidly growing technology, “additive manufacturing (AM)”. AM has successfully entered almost all manufacturing industries as this is the most reliable technology for producing products efficiently and on time. When we look towards the nuclear industry, the need to efficiently manufacture complex nuclear products can be successful through AM. In nuclear industries, there are many other spare components. Through the AM, the time for manufacturing for those products deducted by almost 90%. The cost-saving factor of AM helped nuclear industries in many ways. By producing a small modular reactor by AM technology, the cost and time can be cut significantly. Many products like impeller, thimble plugging device, pressure vessels, and boiling water reactor lower tie plates. Many big industries are also looking for manufacturing of the reactor core. That will be the game-changer. As the products manufactured would be used in nuclear industries, the material needs to be very durable, rugged and sturdy. Many researchers are still developing such materials to withstand the immense aggressive environment of the reactor. Different materials are already in action, which is a mixture of different properties. Addbor N25 is specially developed such that it can withstand radiation without failure. It is made through a combination of boron carbide and nylon. Boron carbide is one of the most complex materials present. Silicon carbide can also be seen for the production of other spare parts. Different factors are also considered for selecting material like geometrical tolerance, mechanical properties, chemical composition, and behaviour towards corrosion, hardness and friction. Many old nuclear industries also face the problem that the complex parts they have manufactured through old manufacturing techniques cannot manufacture through the same technique as they would not give the desired configuration. Here AM becomes majorly helpful by the production of the product with exact configuration through reverse engineering. We considered all the available materials through this research and studied all the properties and the possible product that can be formed.