Modular gas-cooled reactor core optimal design and additive manufacturing performance based on SiC matrix dispersed with TRi-structural ISOtropic fuel

High-temperature gas-cooled reactors present significant technical competitiveness in various fields, such as low-carbon electricity, thermal energy, and hydrogen supply. Silicon Carbide (SiC) matrix dispersed with TRi-structural ISOtropic (TRISO) particle fuel is characterized by high-temperature tolerance, radiation resistance, and good neutron economy, which has emerged as a pivotal technological pathway for reactor core design. With the rapid advancement of SiC Additive Manufacturing (AM) technology, there is a substantial increase in core design flexibility, and an innovative gas-cooled reactor design was proposed by Monte Carlo (MC) method in this paper. The Non-uniform Rational B-spline (NURBS), Latin Hypercube Sampling (LHS), second-order polynomial response surface, as well as Genetic Algorithm (GA) were coupled to realize the optimization design for the coolant channel. Besides, a modular fuel design was proposed, and the AM SiC shell was fabricated using Binder Jetting (BJ) technology. Furthermore, the densification of the AM SiC shell and the matrix with SiC powder and SiC microspheres (TRISO simulator) was investigated by Chemical Vapor Infiltration (CVI). Finally, the microscopic morphology analysis and thermal-mechanical performance characterization of the samples were conducted, which demonstrated the technical feasibility and advanced capabilities of the SiC matrix dispersed with TRISO fuel based on AM technology.