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Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and its partners have demonstrated reusable, fiber-reinforced composite forms that can be produced in about two weeks instead of roughly six months for conventional steel molds. The forms shape cast-in-place concrete for advanced-nuclear facilities, including difficult shielding geometries and interlocking joints.
The reactor is not 3D-printed. The innovation is reusable 3D-printed formwork, produced with large-scale additive manufacturing and then finished with precision machining. It could remove a slow construction bottleneck, although it does not mean the entire reactor will be completed six months sooner.
What the new method actually 3D-prints
Conventional concrete formwork uses steel molds made for a particular geometry. Building specialized molds can be costly and labor-intensive, especially when a nuclear facility requires thick radiation shielding, unusual interfaces or interlocking sections.
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The ORNL-led approach prints fiber-reinforced composite forms at large scale. Precision machining then brings critical surfaces to the required dimensions. Once assembled, the forms hold wet concrete while it cures and can be reused for additional sections.
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Because the mold defines the concrete’s shape, the technique can produce geometries that are difficult to fabricate with conventional steel formwork. One target is an interlocking joint that allows radiation-shielding panels to be assembled without grout.
Why the reported lead-time change matters
ORNL reported that the reusable forms can be designed, 3D-printed and delivered in about two weeks. Conventional steel molds for comparable specialized work take approximately six months to build. That is a reduction in form-production lead time from about half a year to a small fraction of it.
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| Measure | Reusable printed composite forms | Conventional steel molds |
|---|---|---|
| Reported production and delivery time | About two weeks (ORNL, 2026) | Approximately six months (ORNL, 2026) |
| Complex or interlocking geometries | Supported by additive manufacturing and machining | More difficult and potentially slower to fabricate |
| Critical-surface precision | Down to one-sixteenth of an inch in the demonstration | Not stated in the reported demonstration |
| Reuse | Designed as reusable formwork | Not stated as a distinguishing result in the demonstration |
| Concrete pressure | Forms withstood the substantial pressure from the concrete they shaped | Conventional steel molds are the incumbent method; no new comparative test value was reported |
| Cost and lifecycle performance | Complete comparison not reported | Complete comparison not reported |
The six-month-versus-two-week figures apply to the molds, not to the complete reactor project. Site preparation, concrete placement, curing, mechanical and electrical installation, inspections, licensing and other nuclear-quality requirements still control major portions of the schedule.
What was demonstrated at the Hermes project
The technology reached full-scale demonstrations at Kairos Power’s Oak Ridge campus in Tennessee, where the Hermes Low-Power Demonstration Reactor is under construction.
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For the Janus cast-in-place concrete shielding demonstration, crews stacked three 10-foot-by-10-foot sections into a column. The forms are precursors to forms planned for portions of the Hermes facility. The demonstration showed that the printed composite tooling could be used at construction scale rather than only in a laboratory or small prototype.
It did not mean that the entire Hermes facility is being built with 3D-printed formwork. The demonstrated work represents a specific shielding application and informs future form designs.
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Capabilities shown in the demonstration
- Dimensional control: Critical surfaces reached one-sixteenth-inch precision.
- Structural performance: The forms resisted the substantial pressure exerted by the concrete during casting.
- Geometric flexibility: Additive manufacturing handled shapes that are difficult to make with conventional molds, including potential interlocking shielding interfaces.
- Reusable tooling: The forms are intended for repeated use, which is important when a facility contains multiple similar concrete sections.
- Digital-to-field workflow: Designs can be adjusted, printed, machined and delivered without waiting for a long steel-mold fabrication cycle.
How this could affect an advanced-reactor construction schedule
Specialized formwork can become a critical-path item when a design changes late, when several unique shapes are needed or when a project must produce many heavy shielding components. A two-week production cycle gives construction teams more opportunity to respond to updated engineering information and site conditions.
The benefit is best understood as schedule flexibility and bottleneck removal. If forms arrive sooner, concrete work may start earlier or proceed with fewer pauses. The overall project gain depends on whether form fabrication is actually limiting the job and whether other tasks can run in parallel.
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There is no reported evidence that the method cuts the total Hermes schedule by six months, and no complete cost or lifecycle comparison with steel tooling has been published in the reported results.
Who developed the technology
The effort brought together ORNL’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office, Kairos Power, the University of Maine’s Advanced Structures and Composites Center, Barnard Construction, Airtech Advanced Materials Group, JuggerBot 3D, Additive Engineering Solutions, Haddy and Tru-Design.
The project received the 2026 CAMX Combined Strength Award. ORNL group leader Ahmed Arabi Hassen said that accelerating advanced-nuclear deployment requires rethinking how reactors are built as well as how they are designed. ORNL associate laboratory director Robert Wagner described the award as recognition of national-laboratory, university and industry collaboration moving advanced manufacturing into real-world use.
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- Whether the two-week turnaround can be maintained for every form size, geometry and production volume.
- How many reuse cycles the composite forms can achieve under field conditions.
- Full cost, maintenance and end-of-life comparisons with steel molds.
- How regulatory qualification and quality-assurance requirements will apply across different reactor projects.
- The net effect on a complete reactor construction schedule after all other work packages are included.
Those questions determine how broadly the method can be deployed. The current result establishes a full-scale demonstration of faster, precise, reusable concrete formwork—not a fully printed reactor or a guaranteed six-month reduction in nuclear construction time.
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