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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2026

2026 Annual Molten Salt Reactor Campaign Review

This report documents the 2026 Annual Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) Campaign Review held in Albuquerque, New Mexico, from April 21–24, 2026. The review was organized by Dr. Patricia Paviet, National Technical Director of the Advanced Reactor Technology (ART) MSR program for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy (DOE-NE), and included participation from principal investigators, federal managers, developers, regulators, and members of the broader MSR community. The 2026 review expanded beyond the ART-MSR campaign to include related DOE-NE programs supporting molten salt reactor advancement, including the Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) program, the Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies (AMMT) program, Advanced Reactor Safeguards and Security (ARSS), Material Protection, Accounting and Control Technologies (MPACT), and relevant advanced fuels activities. Three days were dedicated to technical presentations and panel discussions covering thermal properties, off-gas management, modeling and simulation, safety and licensing, safeguards and security, materials and corrosion, and irradiation activities. A fourth day was dedicated to technical tours of Sandia National Laboratories and Kairos Power facilities. Attendance was strong and comparable to the prior annual review, with approximately 75 in-person participants per day, 75–80 virtual attendees per day, and approximately 30 participants in the tour day. The review fostered significant technical exchange across national laboratories, universities, industry, regulators, and international participants. This report summarizes the review structure, technical themes, participation, tours, feedback, and conclusions relevant to future planning for the MSR campaign.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Irradiation and corrosion testing of laser powder bed fusion-manufactured materials in the AMMT program

The Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies (AMMT) program operating under the Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy is accelerating the qualification and deployment of additively manufactured materials in advanced reactor environments. Laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) has emerged as a promising additive manufacturing technique to fabricate complex components with the potential of tailored material properties. In the nuclear industry, metal additive manufacturing can offer numerous advantages, such as reduced lead times, streamlined quality assurance, and cost-effective low-volume production of new and replacement components with conventional or novel materials and geometries. The rapid and effective qualification of the effect of processing variability on the performance and degradation of additively manufactured materials is essential for the deployment of these components into advanced reactor environments. As part of this effort, AMMT is performing irradiation and corrosion testing of several materials built by LPBF, including 316L and 316H stainless steels. Our efforts encompass neutron irradiation testing, ion irradiation testing, and advanced modeling to provide a robust technical basis for understanding the effect of process variability on materials degradation and developing a sound methodology for accelerated ion irradiation testing. We develop focused irradiation test plans that align well with risk-informed and technologically inclusive approaches to licensing. We will also discuss our plans and specific concerns for corrosion testing additively manufactured material, with a primary focus on molten salt and liquid sodium environments.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Development of Accelerated High Temperature Mechanical Testing Techniques

The Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies (AMMT) Program focuses on advancing materials and manufacturing techniques for nuclear energy applications, particularly in the qualification of materials for high-temperature structural use. This report presents work on refining the creep testing of small specimen geometries. Efforts include the development of a new specimen geometry for sub-sized specimens, which were subjected to uniaxial creep tests. The results contribute to the understanding of material behavior under stress at elevated temperatures and offer potential improvements in creep data collection methods. These findings support ongoing advancements in material qualification processes essential for nuclear reactor applications.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2025

Instantiation of the Damara Tern Platform for Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies (AMMT) Program Collaborative Data Management

This work package focused on deploying an instance of the Damara Tern platform to support AMMT collaborative research activities. The objectives were to provide selected AMMT collaborators with access to a shared environment for capturing operations, trackables, and associated metadata, and to implement data entry functionalities that reflect site-specific procedures. Key activities included creating configurable, schema-driven entry forms and validating the data collection process. The report details the deployment process, the platform infrastructure, and the implemented data entry workflows, providing a reference for end users and establishing a foundation for future production-scale deployments.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Results of Post-Process NDE Using Advanced Techniques on AM Parts

The purpose of this report is to provide an overview of the FY24 activities to apply advanced nondestructive examination (NDE) methods to materials and components produced using advanced manufacturing (AM) processes such as Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) and Direct Energy Deposition (DED) and assess the challenges of examining these materials to identify defects and microstructure variations. This work was performed as part of the U.S. Department of Energy‘s Office of Nuclear Energy Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies (AMMT) Program. The primary mission of the AMMT program is to develop advanced materials and manufacturing technologies that enable both the current fleet and the next generation of advanced nuclear reactors to operate safely and economically, and to maintain U.S. leadership in technology development for nuclear energy systems.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2025

Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies (AMMT) 2025 Roadmap

The mission of the Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies (AMMT) program is to accelerate the development, qualification, demonstration, and deployment of advanced materials and manufacturing technologies in support of the United States (US) leadership in a broad range of nuclear energy applications. The vision of the AMMT program is the expansion of reliable and economical nuclear energy enabled by advanced materials and manufacturing technologies. Four major goals were set to realize the mission and vision of the AMMT program, including: (1) develop advanced materials and manufacturing technologies that have cross-reactor applications, (2) establish and demonstrate a rapid qualification framework that supports diverse materials and manufacturing technology needs, (3) evaluate materials performance in a range of nuclear environments, and (4) accelerate commercialization of new technologies through technology maturation. The program is designed to deliver solutions that support a wide range of reactor technologies.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2023

Summary of Methodology for Mitigating Risks Associated with Licensing and Qualifying AM Nuclear Materials

The US Department of Energy’s Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies (AMMT) program focuses on accelerating the development, qualification, demonstration, and deployment of advanced materials and manufacturing technologies to enable reliable and economical nuclear energy. Laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) is one of the most popular additive manufacturing (AM) processes for fabricating components with intrinsically complex geometries. LPBF was extensively explored for nuclear applications under the previous Transformational Challenge Reactor program. Additionally, Oak Ridge National Laboratory developed and licensed the Peregrine software and larger digital platform that couples machine learning and in situ data collection during AM to detect anomalies and any evolved defects. The digital platform will be critical to (1) the qualification of AM components for nuclear applications that link location-specific data to macroscopic properties and (2) predict final component performance. Current in situ process monitoring tools are valuable for observing the formation of stochastic flaws, but additional data are needed to predict the resulting microstructures and associated material performance. Rapid cooling rates and large thermal gradients have caused large heterogeneities in the microstructure, which cause anisotropy in mechanical performance. The AMMT program is evaluating the best approaches for addressing these heterogeneities and their effect on component performance using a combination of multiscale modeling, enhanced in situ process monitoring, and high throughput experimental testing. This report summarizes strategies for mitigating the risks associated with qualifying AM components, including developing new sensing capabilities for in situ process monitoring and characterizing melt pool solidification and residual stresses to inform multiscale modeling efforts.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Assessment of Process Modeling Tools for Determining Variability in Additively Manufactured Parts

The Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies (AMMT) program aims to accelerate the development, qualification, demonstration, and deployment of advanced materials and manufacturing technologies to enable reliable and economical nuclear energy However, the unique aspects of additive manufacturing (AM) materials in terms of their processing history, microstructure, and properties, are a major barrier for qualification and certification of nuclear components. Much of this challenge may be attributed to component scale variations in microstructure and properties that are driven by local influences of process conditions and geometry on thermal history, melt pool dynamics, and corresponding microstructure evolution. Computational modeling tools may be helpful in this regard to aid in predicting and controlling this level of variability. The purpose of this report is to review the current state-of-the-art for process modeling with regards to metal AM. For this purpose, we consider specifically the case study of laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) processing of SS316, a family of alloys that are both commonly used in nuclear energy applications and suitable for AM processing. The report first introduces the necessary components of a process modeling workflow, followed by a review of the current status of each. At the end, application of these modeling tools to understanding variability in AM process given their current state are considered, and recommendations for future development are proposed

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2023

In-Situ Monitoring Assisted Large-Scale Additive Manufacturing of Mild Steel and 316L Alloys for Nuclear Application

The Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies (AMMT) Program is aimed at developing cross-cutting technologies in support of a broad range of nuclear reactor parts, and to maintain U.S. leadership in materials and manufacturing technologies for nuclear energy applications. The overarching vision of the AMMT program is to accelerate the development, qualification, demonstration and deployment of advanced materials and manufacturing technologies to enable reliable and economical nuclear energy. One of its three goals is to target big challenges and game-changing technologies, to realize the mission and vision of AMMT program. Based on this context, this multi-year work package focuses on understanding the current state of large-scale additive manufacturing (AM) technology for the deposition of 316L stainless steel materials for final components and mild steel for use in nuclear manufacturing processes. The targeted AM modality is directed energy deposition (DED), capable of fabricating components on the size scale of meters including valves, pumps, impellers. etc. that are challenging or difficult to source, especially when developing new systems or replacing obsolete components. Accordingly, the current writeup aims at providing a baseline literature survey on structure-property relationships in mild steel and 316L alloys. Also, information on preliminary trials to date involving these two alloys show tremendous potential of printing parts having complex geometry and thin- walled structures, such as nuclear valve and Hot isostatic Press (HIP) can, using wire based (Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing and Hybrid Additive Manufacturing) as well as blown powder DED machines. All of this is aimed towards (i) demonstrating the ability to fabricate large components for pressure boundary applications relevant to the nuclear community and nuclear manufacturing technology, and (ii) understanding the effect of different manufacturing technology on AM can production and post HIPed material for nuclear applications. Another target of this writeup is to compile various in-situ monitoring tools that have been incorporated for different DED AM modalities, in order to understand process variability during the entire fabrication process. This can be correlated with processing-structure-property response surfaces and would add confidence around process quality verification and ultimately component certification for nuclear applications.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2025

FY 2025 Multidimensional Data Correlation Platform: Unified Software Architecture for Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Data Management and Processing

The Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies (AMMT) program continues to advance a data-driven approach to demonstrate the utility of additive manufacturing for fabricating components for nuclear applications. A key scientific goal is to leverage data to better understand manufacturing outcomes and thereby improve the performance, reliability, and lifespan of nuclear components. Ultimately, this effort supports the development of standards for certification and qualification of additively manufactured components, enabling broader industry adoption. In support of this objective, the AMMT program is building and deploying a data management platform to record, index, analyze, and make available the manufacturing data generated across the AMMT program. In FY 2023, the team conceptualized the architecture of the platform and, in FY 2024, deployed the first functional version at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Manufacturing Demonstration Facility (MDF). In FY 2025, the platform was officially opened to all AMMT members. To enable this expansion, core modifications and enhancements were developed, including improvements to the user interface and workflows for data entry and retrieval. Most notably, robust security and access control mechanisms were implemented to protect data and manage information sharing. This effort featured a logging system, protected views, and controlled access mechanisms. This report documents these enhancements and the transition of the platform into program-wide use.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2023

Survey Corrosion Testing Methodologies for Additively Manufactured Materials – PNNL

The Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technology (AMMT) Program intends to develop cross-cutting technologies in support of a broad range of nuclear reactor technologies, and to maintain U.S. leadership in materials and manufacturing technologies for nuclear energy applications. The overarching vision of the AMMT Program is to accelerate the development, qualification, demonstration, and deployment of advanced materials and manufacturing technologies to enable reliable and economical nuclear energy.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2025

AMMT-Regulatory Development Collaboration Scoping Project

This project was initiated by the Regulatory Development (RD) Program to identify potential collaborations in work scope between the Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies (AMMT) Program and the Regulatory Development Program. During Fiscal Year 2025, RD Program staff met with members of the AMMT Program, including the national technical director and multiple technical area leads to discuss ongoing work and areas where regulatory interactions with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) would increase the efficiency to get new materials and manufacturing technologies approved for industry use. RD staff would like to thank the AMMT staff for their participation in these interactions to identify areas of potential collaboration.

11 - NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Cluster Dynamics Modeling Needs for the Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Program

This milestone report aims to identify and assess the cluster dynamics (CD) modeling requirements within the Department of Energy's Office of Nuclear Energy (DOE-NE) Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies (AMMT) program and to communicate these needs to the DOE-NE Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) program. The goal is to ensure NEAMS is well-informed about the CD modeling requirements to support AMMT's mission of accelerating the development, qualification, demonstration, and deployment of advanced structural materials and manufacturing for nuclear energy applications. CD modeling is an essential tool for predicting the degradation of structural materials under irradiation, which is a key component of AMMT's accelerated qualification process. The AMMT program focuses on both additively manufactured and wrought structural alloys, such as laser powder-bed fusion 316H austenitic stainless steel, alloy 709, Haynes 244, and alloy 617. These materials require a generalized CD modeling framework to facilitate rapid model development and computational simulation. A flexible, generalized CD software, similar to the Multiphysics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) finite element framework, would enable modeling of various cluster types, including defect clusters, defect-solute clusters, and multicomponent clusters, incorporating thermodynamics and kinetics parameters. Radiation effects, microstructural feature evolution, and multi-dimensional modeling are critical considerations for the CD model. The usability of the CD code should allow for easy modification and coupling with MOOSE-based simulations. Additionally, the software should adhere to Nuclear Quality Assurance-1 standards, include a testing suite for verification and validation, and be version-controlled within a national laboratory-managed Git repository. Benchmark problems are needed to assess code predictions and performance.

11 - NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Evaluation of In-Situ AM Process Monitoring Techniques and Potential for Detecting Process Anomalies and Undesirable Microstructures

The US Department of Energy’s Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies (AMMT) program is pursuing rapid qualification of new materials for fabrication of nuclear relevant components using advanced manufacturing techniques. Particular interest is placed on code-qualifying stainless steel (SS) 316H processed by laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) additive manufacturing. A paradigm that incorporates data from in-situ sensing during the printing, ex-situ characterization, and advanced artificial intelligence–based models was established under the Transformation Challenge Reactor (TCR) program to develop a pedigree for each fabricated component that could be tracked from the feedstock to the component’s release for application. Under the TCR program, the Peregrine software was developed as a tool for incorporating the vast amounts of in-situ and ex-situ characterization data collected; all data stored on a rapidly growing digital platform. The digital platform allows for users to link site-specific process anomalies to the macro- and microstructure. The platform will eventually be able to predict component performance, which will be crucial to qualifying materials and components in risk-averse industries such as those supporting and building nuclear reactors. Current in-situ process monitoring techniques that are already integrated with software like Peregrine are advantageous for identifying process anomalies including powder spatter, component edge swelling, recoating-build interactions, and so on. However, additional data are required to fully predict the resulting microstructures needed for identifying relationships to component performance. The rapid cooling rates observed in LPBF are some of the highest of any bulk manufacturing process, resulting in heterogenous microstructures and typically causing anisotropy in mechanical properties. Moreover, evolved residual thermal stresses are high, which can cause severe defects such as delamination or cracking. Therefore, other in-situ monitoring methods are warranted for exploration to measure and map the thermal history, and potentially the stress state, of each build. This report summarizes different in-situ monitoring strategies proposed for LPBF with a focus on the more developed sensor systems. Novel capabilities for measuring melt pool temperatures are also addressed to better inform modeling efforts.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Development Results on Replacement Materials for Current Scarce or High Supply Chain Risk Materials

In September 2020, the U.S. government issued an executive order to address the threat to the domestic supply chain from its reliance on critical minerals (CMs) from foreign competitors and to support the domestic mining and processing industry. The Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technology (AMMT) program is addressing this executive order by evaluating advanced manufacturing (AM) and its impact on the demands of CMs for energy production in general and how the deployment of AM in nuclear energy will support the projected goals of the Paris Accord and further a net-zero carbon economy (NZE) by 2050. Three strategic reports were previously prepared by the AMMT program to date and identified two areas for more detailed exploration: (1) the replacement of high-risk CMs such as cobalt and niobium by more abundant minerals and (2) the minimization and utilization of CM waste streams. The design of nuclear materials without critical elements as alloying elements, is a part of the nuclear materials strategy to overcome the critical minerals scarcity. In this report, two approaches are evaluated namely (1) replacement of critical elements as alloying elements in nuclear materials, and (2) the design of a new alloys that does not contain critical minerals as an alloying element.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2023

Evaluation of printability methodologies and feasibility to down select LBPF steel and other materials for nuclear applications

In this work, new research is underway to produce alloys beyond well-known alloys with modified compositions that are better suited to be produced with additive manufacturing. These alloys can only possess improved radiation tolerance but also improved high temperature strength, creep resistance while also using elements that reduce the amount of activation after irradiation. This work package supports the vision and goals of the Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technology (AMMT) program relevant to accelerate the development and deployment of advanced manufacturing processes. This work focuses on evaluating the methodology for designing alloys best suited for AM processes based on “printability”, literature research to evaluate and down select steel alloy systems. In this work, microstructural characterization and testing activities have been performed on certain steel alloys to support the efforts from collaborating laboratories during the evaluation and printing of the test articles. The final recommendation will be performed by all four participating laboratories.

316L↗
DOE OSTI2024

Accelerated Irradiation Effects Qualification in the AMMT Program

This presentation discusses the ongoing and upcoming efforts to use combined neutron and ion irradiation experiments for materials qualification within the Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies (AMMT) program for the 2024 AMMT program review meeting. The microstructure evolution of additively manufactured 316 L and 316 H stainless steels are discussed, as well as the development of the AMMT challenge problem for this topic.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Complete Optimization of LPBF Ni-Based Alloys Down-Selected from FY23 Candidate Materials Including, Thermodynamic Modeling, Sample Fabrication and Microstructure Characterization

The goal of the Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies (AMMT) program is to accelerate the incorporation of new materials and manufacturing technologies into advanced nuclear-related systems. Although 316H stainless steel fabricated by laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) has already been identified as an alloy that could have a significant effect on various reactor technologies, many other materials and manufacturing techniques are being evaluated. Nickel-based alloys typically offer higher-temperature capabilities compared with advanced stainless steels, and previous reports looked at three Ni-based alloy categories: low-Co alloys with a potential use close to the reactor core; high-temperature, high-strength alloys; and molten salt–compatible alloys. In the first category, alloy 718 was studied in 2023, and creep testing at 600°C and 650°C revealed that the alloy exhibited great creep strength after the appropriate annealing but had low ductility. Advanced characterization was recently conducted to highlight the presence of strengthening γ' and γ" precipitates after creep testing and to show that brittle phases at grain boundaries might explain the low ductility of LPBF 718 compared with wrought 718. For the high-temperature, high-strength alloys, previously purchased powders of alloys 617, 230, and 625 were used to assess the printability of these three solution-strengthened alloys. Hot cracking could not be suppressed for alloy 617 and 230, and it was shown that these cracks, which were elongated along the build direction (BD), had a drastic effect on the ductility of alloy 230 at room temperature when specimens were machined perpendicular to the BD. On the contrary, LPBF printing of crack-free alloy 625 was achieved using similar printing parameters, and the alloy looked like a promising candidate for various reactor technologies. The fabrication of alloy 282 by LPBF, a γ'-strengthened alloy with great creep strength up to 800°C, was performed in 2023, and x-ray computed tomography (XCT) scans of the alloy before and after creep testing at 750°C were carried out to assess the effect of flaws on the alloy’s creep behavior. Correlation between the flaws’ volume fraction, creep ductility, and creep lifetime could be established, and future work on LPBF 625 will take full advantage of in situ printing data and ex situ XCT scans to accelerate the alloy qualification. Finally, single track experiments were performed on the two alloys previously identified as good molten salt–resistant, Ni-based candidates: Hastelloy N and 244. Various laser parameters were considered, and cracking was not observed for either of the two alloys. Wrought 244 offers better creep strength and molten salt compatibility than alloy 625, and future work will aim to establish the alloy LPBF processing window.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗