The Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) in the US state of Illinois has submitted a draft for its 3D printing for high temperature nuclear reactor components, which it says could lower the cost of manufacturing such parts and making them safer and more reliable.

The US federal research centre said that in collaboration with partners including two other federal facilities, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Idaho National Laboratory, it had submitted a proposal for the use of laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) for review as part of a “Code Case”. Code Cases are approved alternatives or exceptions to the ASME boiler and pressure vessel rules, allowing the immediate use of new materials, designs or technologies before formal code revisions.

ANL said the use of 3D printing technology for high-performance materials in next-generation reactors was a major breakthrough for applied material science in the nuclear industry.