Abstract
Nuclear thermal propulsion is a higher specific impulse option for in-space propulsion compared with chemical rockets, offering reduced transit times, higher payload, and reduced launch costs. Ultra Safe Nuclear (USNC) has designed a demonstration reactor and developed the manufacturing capabilities to produce the nuclear fuel in-house. The fuel consists of ceramic uranium fuel kernels coated with layers of low-density and high-density carbon along with zirconium carbide (ZrC). These particles are suspended in a printed ZrC matrix so that the particles are immediately adjacent to the hydrogen flow path. An additional ZrC chemical vapor deposition (CVD) coating is applied to act as an ablation layer and an additional protection for the fuel. All of these processes have been demonstrated. Preliminary testing was conducted on the printed ZrC matrix and ZrC CVD coatings in flowing hydrogen up to 2600 K.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 155538 |
| Journal | Journal of Nuclear Materials |
| Volume | 605 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Feb 2025 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Funding
The manufacturing and production of the fuel kernels, coated fuel particles, and the ZrC fuel form was carried out with USNC internal R&D funds. The geometrical design, analysis, and characterization of the fuel was funded by NASA SNP Phase 1E grant funded by U.S. Department of Energy contract #279586 , managed by the Idaho National Laboratory for NASA's Space Nuclear Propulsion project in the Space Technology Mission Directorate. The following staff at USNC directly supported this effort: Solution gelation and kernel conversion was performed by Barry Spencer, Jack Collins, Jonah Pechenik, Cory Craft, and Cara McAvoy, and Griffin Gayne. Binder jet printing was supported by Jano Farah, Corey Morgan, and Eric Conover. Chemical vapor processing was supported by Lanny Garside, Aaron Buckley, Kent Buske, Austin Schumacher, Alex Reichenbach, and Stephanie Bruffey. Characterization was performed by Rachel Seibert, and Ryan Futrell. Additional design and fabrication support was provided by Vishal Patel, Andrew Minter, Jesse Dumas, and Gavin Garside. Hot Hydrogen testing was performed at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center by Jamelle Williams and Arne Cr\u00F6ll.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| National Aeronautics and Space Administration | |
| Lanny Garside | |
| Idaho National Laboratory | |
| U.S. Department of Energy | 279586 |
Keywords
- Additive manufacturing (AM)
- Nuclear fuel
- Nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP)
- Tristructural isotropic (TRISO) particle
- Uranium nitride (UN)
- Zirconium carbide
