As energy demand grows in the United States, ensuring reliable, affordable power is more important than ever. Nuclear energy already supplies about 20 percent of the nation's electricity and is poised to play an even larger role in the future.
To scale that role, advanced manufacturing is essential. At the Department of Energy’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, researchers are pioneering faster, safer, and more cost-effective solutions for nuclear innovation.
The Manufacturing Demonstration Facility, or MDF, leads national efforts to apply 3D printing, digital tools, and smart manufacturing to nuclear energy challenges. By connecting material suppliers, equipment makers, regulators, and end users, MDF is strengthening supply chains and speeding innovation.
Here are four ways ORNL is accelerating nuclear energy availability through manufacturing:
1. Building better supply chains for reactor infrastructure
Nuclear reactor structures must meet highly specific performance and regulatory requirements. Components like bioshields—massive concrete radiation barriers—must be cast with exceptional precision, traditionally requiring costly and slow-to-produce steel molds.
As a proof of concept, ORNL and partners fabricated large, reusable, 3D-printed forms for the Kairos Power Hermes demonstration reactor. Taking advantage of additive manufacturing’s flexibility and speed, researchers designed, printed, and deployed the molds in just 14 days. The 3D-printed forms for the Janus shielding demonstration are precursors to those that Kairos Power and Barnard will employ to construct parts of the Hermes reactor facility. Each section measures roughly 10 feet by 10 feet and are stacked three units high to create a column.
2. Improving spent fuel storage
Dry cask storage, which uses sealed steel and concrete containers, is a common method for storing spent nuclear fuel. Using its MedUSA metal additive manufacturing platform, MDF printed an 837-pound stainless steel canister and successfully tested it for drop and puncture resistance. This demonstration showed how advanced manufacturing can streamline the production and qualification of nuclear waste containers while enhancing domestic fabrication capabilities. Faster production and qualification of nuclear waste containers are crucial to ensure timely, secure storage of spent fuel, support reactor operations, and strengthen domestic manufacturing and energy security.
3. Speeding component qualification with smart tools
Qualifying parts for nuclear reactors can take years due to stringent safety requirements. With many existing light water reactors expected to retire by 2055, accelerating the deployment of new systems is critical.
ORNL’s Peregrine software tool tracks every step of a 3D-printed part’s creation in real time, enabling faster, more reliable certification. This tool was key to qualifying the first-ever 3D-printed components used inside an operating nuclear reactor. The brackets—now in use at TVA’s Browns Ferry plant—went from concept to operation in just six months. This achievement proves advanced manufacturing can meet the industry's rigorous safety standards and radically shorten deployment timelines.
ORNL also developed Simurgh, an AI tool that improves defect detection and reduces X-ray scan time, minimizing technician exposure, significantly lowering nondestructive characterization (NDC) costs, and boosting NDC throughput. Idaho National Laboratory has adopted Simurgh to characterize irradiated materials and parts and is working with ORNL to accelerate characterization of TRISO fuel elements to better understand the effect of radiation on fuel and structural materials.
4. Proving 3D-printed components can perform
To test materials in a reactor environment, researchers use sealed metal specimen capsules that hold fuel samples during irradiation.
ORNL used a laser powder bed fusion printer to produce stainless steel capsules. Each one was sealed to be airtight and was pressure-tested to 6,000 pounds per square inch before being placed into the High Flux Isotope Reactor. After weeks of exposure, all capsules maintained structural integrity. This success paves the way for 3D-printed components in safety-critical roles across nuclear and other high-spec industries.
The MDF, supported by DOE’s Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office, is a nationwide consortium of collaborators working with ORNL to innovate, inspire and catalyze the transformation of U.S. manufacturing. Learn more about working with the MDF. Several MDF projects related to nuclear energy are supported by DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy’s Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies program.
UT-Battelle manages ORNL for DOE’s Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. The Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science. — Logan Korn