Study of Microfluidic Mixing and Droplet Generation for 3D Printing of Nuclear Fuels

Internal gelation and 3D printing processes were proposed to combine in a process that is promising to produce nuclear fuels with simplified production route and enhanced in-core performance [1]. The process relies on in-situ mixing of feed solutions that bear actinides and uranium nitrates with the methenamine and urea mixture. These feed solutions should be thoroughly mixed and kept at low temperature up to an inkjet printing head, where an inkjet printing process is used to deposit controlled volumes of the mixed solution on the pellet under-fabrication. Microwave and/or laser-heating are then used to trigger the gelation reaction and to solidify these printed dots and later to drive out the excess water and pre-sinter the gelled oxides. The current study is an initial approach to optimize the upfront parameters of the 3D printing process. The feed solutions need be mixed in a passive microfluidic mixer, where the first optimization parameter is the minimum mixing time in the microfluidic mixer that will yield an acceptable mixing level. To do so, CFD modelling using OpenFOAM for different designs of microfluidic mixers was conducted to select the most efficient conception. To validate the CFD results, simulation of microfluidic mixers similar to some literature cases were performed and compared. The uncertainty of selected parameters in the CFD models was used to evaluate a conservative retention time and length. Secondly, the next printing step was modeled with OpenFOAM, which is the droplet generation process. The objective from these models was to correlate the feed parameters like the flow rate and the usage of an acoustic mechanical vibrator to the printed droplets size, generation rate, and the required stand-off distance of the printing head. To perform these CFD simulations with the right solution parameters, rheology and diffusivity measurements were conducted. A proposed empirical approach was investigated for the evaluation of the diffusivity of multi-species solutions. The resultant parameters from the current study are the mixing times and lengths for given microfluidic mixers that are industrially feasible, also, the rate and volume at which the droplets of the broth mixture are generated. These results can be used as guidelines for designing the inkjet printing head and to highlight areas where further investigations are required for an efficient production process.