Many of the same manufacturing/fabrication technologies that were employed for light water reactors (LWR) plants built 30-50 years ago are also being employed today to build advanced light water reactors (ALWRs). Manufacturing technologies have not changed dramatically for the nuclear industry even though higher quality production processes are available which could be used to significantly reduce overall component manufacturing/fabrication costs. New manufacturing/ fabrication technologies that can accelerate production and reduce costs are vital for the next generation of plants (Small Modular Reactors (SMR) and GEN IV plants) to assure they can be competitive in today’s and tomorrow’s market.

This project has been assembled to demonstrate and test several of these new manufacturing/ fabrication technologies with a goal of producing critical assemblies of a 2/3rds scale SMR reactor pressure vessel (RPV). Through use of technologies including: powder metallurgy-hot isostatic pressing, (PM-HIP), electron beam welding, diode laser cladding, bulk additive manufacturing, advanced machining, and elimination of dissimilar metal welds (DMWs), EPRI, the US Department of Energy, and the UK-based Nuclear-Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (Nuclear-AMRC) (together with a number of other industrial team members) will seek to demonstrate the hypothesis that critical sections of an SMR reactor can be manufactured/fabricated in a timeframe of less than 12 months and at an overall cost savings of >40% (versus today’s technologies). Major components that will be fabricated from PM-HIP include: the lower reactor head, upper reactor head, steam plenum, steam plenum access ports and covers, and upper transition shell.

The project aims to demonstrate and test the impact that each of these technologies would have on future production of SMRs, and explore the relevance of the technologies to the production of ALWRs, SMRs, GEN IV, Ultra-supercritical fossil, and supercritical CO2 plants. The project, if successful, may accelerate deployment of SMRs in both the USA and UK, and ultimately throughout the world for power production.