3D Systems Partners With Savannah River Lab to Advance Nuclear 3D Printing

3D Systems and Savannah River National Laboratory have signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement to push additive manufacturing into nuclear energy and defense applications. The work will happen at SRNL's Advanced Manufacturing Collaborative in South Carolina, with the partners jointly developing new materials, production equipment, AI and machine-learning tools, and scalable manufacturing processes.

The target components are not simple brackets. The partners are going after heat exchangers with intricate cooling channels, reactor internals, pumps, and valves. These parts must handle high temperatures, radiation, and mechanical stress while keeping complex geometries that conventional machining struggles to produce. The materials of interest include high-temperature nickel-based superalloys and radiation-tolerant alloys.

Jeff Graves, president and CEO of 3D Systems, framed the agreement around industrial impact rather than research for its own sake. He said it demonstrates the importance of high-quality 3D printing materials and technologies on key markets, particularly energy and national security. SRNL added that the collaboration is meant to strengthen US manufacturing competitiveness and speed up adoption of additive manufacturing.

The partnership also includes a workforce development angle. Researchers, engineers, and technicians will get hands-on time with advanced additive systems, building a pipeline of people trained in processes that nuclear, aerospace, defense, and energy industries increasingly need.

Timing is a factor. The International Energy Agency sees global small modular reactor capacity growing, and those designs need manufacturing methods that can shorten development cycles while producing increasingly complex parts. The US has been trying to rebuild domestic production capacity for large, dense metal components that have long depended on overseas forging and casting. A domestic additive path for nuclear-grade parts fits that goal.

This is not 3D Systems' only recent defense move. Earlier in August, the US Air Force added another $9 million to its large-format metal 3D printing program with the company, bringing total funding to $27.4 million. The SRNL deal is different: it is aimed at materials and processes first, with the goal of moving additive manufacturing from laboratory research toward repeatable industrial production. The CRADA itself has no public submission number, but 3D Systems issued a press release on August 27, 2026.

For the additive manufacturing industry, the signal is clear. National labs and defense agencies are treating metal 3D printing as a supply-chain and production problem, not just a prototyping tool. Whether the partners can turn that into qualified, repeatable nuclear components is the next question.