The traditional way to divine the I Ching is with yarrow stalks.

Well, what about making the containment vessels from multiple forgings welded together? There are an awful lot of safety-critical systems which involve welds--is it really out of the question in this case?

David,

Of course it is done that way often. However, forgings are inherently sounder. Thus they can be made thinner. Which eases thermal problems. Which means they can be made thinner. Their corrosion resistance is better. So they can be made thinner.

Hopefully if this pans out:

WB-7 First Plasma

we can use smaller forgings. Or just weld the reactors together.

The jewel in ths story was this:

The Russians forge their own.

There is competition. They made it sound as if the Ruskies forge the items in one piece as well.