October 2023

The benefits of additive manufacturing (AM) are attractive to many manufacturers, and TAE is one manufacturer taking advantage of these benefits by using AM to produce their thermomechanical components. TAE is a private company founded in 1998 based on research out of the University of California Irvine. The company develops low-carbon energy generation system based upon nuclear fusion. Their proprietary platform called Field-Reversed Configuration (FRC) combines the deepest insights of plasma physics and accelerator physics to heat and stabilize plasma.

As you can imagine, fusion platforms are extremely complex machines and there is an ongoing challenge of controlling the reliability of the hundreds of systems and thousands of components that must work together to face physics and engineering challenges. The thermomechanical components must be free of potential failure points such as welds, brazed joints, and sealed-flanges assemblies, when possible, to optimize their simple, compact design. The ideal solution for TAE to overcome these challenges was to invest their resources in the design power of AM combined with a superior material.

TAE’s initial push towards AM technology was the realization they could benefit from the manufacturing process to incorporate small cooling channels into a particle accelerator grid component. Machining cooling channels is traditionally time consuming, requires a lot of costly development, and doesn’t work with all materials. The TAE team learned a lot from the success of this project and decided to forge ahead with another AM project — print a Plasma Generator anode body, which is not a very complex component, but it incorporates water cooling channels and internal gas injection, plus a final brazing of a CuCrZr cap over a stainless-steel base.

Producing this component conventionally came with hefty prices and a long lead time, and it was not compatible with their project schedule. Therefore, TAE began the project by redesigning the part for AM — consolidating it to one part to remove the potential failure points and incorporating smooth curved channels and organically shaped manifolds connecting to the inlet and outlet. With the optimized design complete and approved for print production, they were ready to move to material and print process selection.

Elementum 3D was introduced to TAE by EOS, a leading laser powder bed Fusion (LPBF) printer manufacturer. A trusting relationship was quickly established between the Engineering Teams. It was an ideal combination of production and technical support for a company like TAE who needs strong industrial partners to build their components. 

“Printing the Plasma Generator anode with Elementum 3D was a great experience. Their deep knowledge of the 3D-printing process, together with a materials expertise, has given us the confidence to pursue other projects with Elementum 3D,” said Vincent Pilard, TAE Project Engineer.

TAE found that the main challenge for this project was selecting the right choice of material. The Plasma Generator anode body was originally composed of two materials (CuCrZr and SS316) but it would now have only one body. TAE’s first choice was to use CuCrZr, based on early-stage AM development and the experience they gained. Elementum 3D engineers proposed GRCop-42 as an alternative material, with a turn-key heat treatment (HIP) solution, ensuring high mechanical strength and thermal conductivity. After having printed and successfully measured the quality of the GRcop-42 samples, TAE decided to use this solution for all their Plasma Generator anode bodies. Since then, it’s a standard material they plan to use in many applications dealing with thermal loads.

Once the testing and prototyping were complete, a successful result was achieved right away. TAE didn’t see any problem with the material or the 3D printed features. After the final machining and cleaning, they assembled the part and ran several tests, and the result was the first successful printing of a 3D-printed functional part to be used in TAE’s fusion experiments.

TAE reported back to us that the project met their expectations in many areas. They not only obtained a more efficient design, but by using AM, they reduced the initial cost and lead time. The transition from conventional machining to a monolithic AM build saved TAE around $10,000 per plasma generator, which includes the cost of chemical cleaning and final machining, both necessary post-processing steps for many (but not all) 3D-printed parts. Therefore, when you consider TAE’s need for four or eight plasma generators per accelerator system, plus spares and test stands, it represents a cost saving of over $800,000 on their Copernicus program — just for this part! Furthermore, this project has paved the road for TAE to save time and money on many future critical parts and applications.

The other benefit they mentioned was establishing a trusted AM partnership with Elementum 3D — one that can contribute to the development of TAE’s advanced designs and ensure high quality manufacturing, within a controlled time and cost frame.

Recently our TAE friends informed us that they will be advancing the design of their water-cooled accelerator grid, with the goal of printing a first prototype by the beginning of 2024.