EPRI, Nuclear Energy Institute also named as contributing partners to National Reactor Innovation Center’s Advanced Construction Technology Initiative project
(WEST LAFAYETTE, Indiana) – Today the Department of Energy’s National Reactor Innovation Center announced a collaboration with Purdue University’s Applied Research Institute to demonstrate construction technologies that could significantly reduce the cost and risk of new nuclear reactors.
NRIC, headquartered at the Idaho National Laboratory, will work with the Purdue Applied Research Institute under NRIC’s Advanced Construction Technology Initiative (ACTI).
This project will demonstrate the construction of a scaled, steel-plate composite containment vessel and reactor building to generate real-world data on its constructability, quality and performance for future small modular reactor deployment. The research institute will support NRIC’s efforts for design, procurement, fabrication, field erection, concrete placement, structural integrity testing and eventual deconstruction of the structure.
Electric Power Research Institute and the Nuclear Energy Institute are also contributing partners to this project. NEI will advise on quality assurance and regulatory alignment. EPRI will provide technical expertise in non-destructive evaluation, advanced welding, and digital twin validation.
The ACTI program is designed to demonstrate advanced construction technologies and approaches that significantly reduce cost, improve quality, and reduce schedule risk during construction of new nuclear reactor projects.
Enabling greater use of parallel construction activities and reducing the amount of work performed on-site — which is inherently more difficult to control and inspect than shop-based fabrication — can improve the reliability of construction outcomes and the economics of deployment. ACTI focuses on closing the gap between reactor R&D and commercial deployment. It addresses key construction-related costs and risks that stand alongside reactor testing and demonstration as critical barriers to commercialization.
“NRIC’s mission is to provide the nuclear industry with the initiatives, facilities, resources and capabilities needed to close the gaps that keep promising technologies from reaching commercialization,” NRIC Director Brad Tomer said. “Construction risk associated with nuclear facilities has been one of the biggest obstacles in that journey, and we created ACTI to tackle that challenge head-on.”
The construction demonstration project will be located at Purdue University. Purdue is also home to the Robert L. and Terry L. Bowen Laboratory, one of the most advanced structural testing facilities of its kind. Bowen Laboratory, which has a long history of collaborating with industry partners, federal organizations and regulatory agencies, recently earned the International Organization for Standardization’s 9001 certification for quality management systems. The Purdue Applied Research Institute team has prior experience with ACTI-related technologies, having conducted stress and strength testing of a modular composite walling system. That technical experience, combined with Bowen Lab’s large-scale testing capacity, informed NRIC’s decision to partner with Purdue.
“We’re honored to be partnering with NRIC on this important initiative and proud to support their mission of providing the industry with the resources needed to move advanced reactor technology toward commercialization,” said Amit Varma, the Karl H. Kettelhut Professor in Civil Engineering in Purdue’s Lyles School of Civil Engineering and director of the research institute’s Infrastructure Innovation Lab. “Bowen Laboratory brings the large-scale testing expertise this project demands, and we’re excited to help generate the data that can remove barriers to building these reactors faster and more affordably.”
NRIC was established in 2019 to enable the demonstration and deployment of advanced nuclear technologies. ACTI is one of several initiatives in NRIC’s broader portfolio. Learn more at nric.inl.gov.
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