Quick Summary
Additional Context
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and Idaho National Laboratory (INL) announced a new collaboration to expand the domestic supply chain for industrial pressure vessels using wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM), a move aimed at accelerating the qualification of critical nuclear components as the U.S. races to scale up its nuclear energy portfolio.
The partnership was unveiled at Materials and Manufacturing Innovation Days (M2IND), an ORNL-hosted event bringing together industry, government and research leaders to discuss AI-enabled manufacturing, nuclear infrastructure and domestic supply chain security.
A Manufacturing Bottleneck, Addressed by WAAM
Pressure vessels are traditionally made through forging. But limited domestic forging capacity has become a bottleneck as the U.S. wor