How does Russia make marine reactors?

How does Russia make marine reactors? OKBM Afrikantova is the principal producer of marine nuclear reactors, including reactors for icebreakers, and for nuclear submarines in Russia. Today we will take a brief excursion on their factory floor.

Some of their principal products include reactors for the icebreakers…

… and for the nuclear submarines

Before I start, let me introduce some basic ideas necessary for the further discussion.

• Nuclear reactor is a machine. To produce it, you need to perform metalworking precisely and consistently.

• In this day and age, precision metalworking is necessarily digital, for there is no other way to do it at a scale.

This makes digital metalworking the one and only, non-alternative way of producing complex mechanisms, such as the marine reactors.

How does the digital workflow work?

1. First, you do a design in the Computer Aided Design (CAD) software.

2. Then, the Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) software turns it into the G-code.

3. Finally, a Computer Numerical Controller (CNC) reads the code and guides the tool accordingly

At the very, very basic level, production cycle can be presented as:

CAD → CAM → CNC

CNC - machine that makes stuff
CAM - software that prepares code for the machine
CAD - software that makes digital designs

That is, of course, a reduction. Still, good enough as a first intro.