Russia’s Rosatom establishes subsidiary for Additive Manufacturing technologies
Russia’s nuclear technology group Rosatom has reported that its TVEL Fuel Company has established a subsidiary, Rusatom – Additive Technologies (RusAT, JSC), to manage the development of Additive Manufacturing technologies within Rosatom. The company is expected to focus on key areas including the manufacture of AM systems and their components, the production of materials and metal powders for AM, software development, AM services and the introduction of AM technologies at industrial enterprises.
Equipment and consumables for AM will be produced at Rosatom enterprises, primarily at TVEL Fuel Company’s NPO Tsentrotech and Ural Electrochemical Integrated Plant facilities, both located in the Urals region of Russia. RusAT, who will coordinate product development while managing orders and contracts, is targeted with growing its annual revenue up to RUB 50 billion (approx. $860 million) by 2025.
Alexey Dub, First Deputy Director General of Science and Innovation at Rosatom’s Science Division (JSC), has been appointed Director General of RusAt. “Rosatom has developed a pre-production prototype of Gen II 3D printer,” he stated. “Commercial production of the printer is scheduled for this year in Novouralsk. The Russian-made printer will be 20% cheaper than the foreign models and have a better performance. At the same time, if we consider just medical institutions in Russia, they need up to one hundred of endoprostheses each year, and we can produce them with our 3D printers.”
Rosatom’s TVEL Fuel Company comprises nuclear fuel fabrication and uranium enrichment facilities, gas centrifuge manufactures, as well as research and engineering companies. It is the only supplier of nuclear fuel for Russian nuclear power plants and states that it supplies nuclear fuel for seventy-five reactors in fourteen countries, research reactors in eight countries and propulsion reactors for the Russian nuclear fleet.
