The fourth call for proposals for the MIT Nuclear Reactor Lab’s (NRL) Seed Fund Program closed on April 15th, 2019. The Seed Program was established in the fall of 2017 as a means to cultivate new research areas, encourage MIT faculty collaboration with NRL staff, and obtain initial data in support of pursuing externally funded research.

After a feasibility and merit review evaluating each proposal, the following proposal was selected:

Process Optimization of Metal and Polymer Additive Manufacturing via Neutron Imaging

Dr. John Hart (Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering, MIT; Director, Center for Additive and Digital Advanced Production Technologies (ADAPT); Director, Laboratory for Manufacturing and Productivity)

The proposed work will apply neutron tomography using one of the MITR neutron beams to correlate manufacturing conditions to voids and stress in additive manufacturing (AM) components. Through the use of neutron-based imaging techniques, the origins of various AM defects can be better understood and novel processing strategies can be developed to create predictable, high-performance components.

The NRL Seed Program provides MIT faculty and research staff no-cost access to MIT Reactor’s irradiation facilities, post-irradiation evaluation (PIE) services, neutron activation analysis and gamma spectroscopy capabilities, and materials characterization instruments with NRL staff support. More information about the NRL Seed Program may be found here: http://nrl.mit.edu/research/seed-program