The Advanced Manufacturing Collaborative at the University of South Carolina–Aiken. (PHOTO: SRNL)
Energy Secretary Chris Wright will attend the opening of the Advanced Manufacturing Collaborative in Aiken, S.C., on August 7. Wright will deliver remarks and join Savannah River National Laboratory leadership and partners for a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
The 3D-printed forms—inside of which concrete is poured—are used to build radiation shielding columns for Kairos Power’s Hermes Low-Power Demonstration Reactor. (Screen capture from ORNL video)
The Department of Energy’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility (MDF) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in partnership with Kairos Power and Barnard Construction, has successfully developed and validated large-scale, 3D-printed polymer composite forms for casting complex concrete structures.
The test took place at Kairos Power’s Oak Ridge, Tenn., campus, where the Hermes Low-Power Demonstration Reactor is currently under construction.
See a video of construction activity here.
Kurt Terrani observing a chemical vapor infiltration furnace at ORNL during densification of additively manufactured nuclear-grade silicon carbide. (Photo: Carlos Jones/ORNL/DOE)
Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation (USNC), a Seattle-based reactor developer, has licensed an additive manufacturing technique developed at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory to print refractory materials into structural and core components for the company’s microreactor designs.