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Antares achieves zero-power criticality at INL
Leveraging more than $140 million in private capital fundraising, over 322,000 square feet of operational manufacturing space, and multifaceted partnerships with the Departments of Energy and Defense, reactor start-up Antares has become the first company involved in the Reactor Pilot Program to achieve zero-power fueled criticality—a full month ahead of the July 4 deadline set by President Trump’s Executive Order 14301.
This milestone, announced yesterday, was achieved with the company’s Mark-0: a sodium heat-pipe-cooled, TRISO-fueled microreactor. The Mark-0 is a forerunner to the company’s flagship design, which it calls the R1. For Antares, this development represents a key validation of its reactor physics, control systems, and supply chain.
Osamu Komeda, Yoshitaka Mori, Ryouhei Hanayama, Shinichiro Okihara, Kazuhisa Fujita, Katsuhiro Ishii, Yoneyoshi Kitagawa, Toshiyuki Kawashima, Nakahiro Satoh, Takashi Sekine, Masaru Takagi, Hirofumi Kan, Naoki Nakamura, Takuya Kondo, Manabu Fujine, Hirozumi Azuma, Tatsumi Hioki, Mitsutaka Kakeno, Tomoyoshi Motohiro, Yasuhiko Nishimura
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 63 | Number 2 | March-April 2013 | Pages 296-300
Technical Paper | Selected papers from 20th Target Fabrication Meeting, May 20-24, 2012, Santa Fe, NM, Guest Editor: Robert C. Cook | doi.org/10.13182/FST13-A16353
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A neutron generator is developed using 1-mm-diam spherical deuterated polystyrene targets on a rotating disk irradiated with an ultrahigh-intensity (>1018 W/cm2) diode-pumped laser. It consists of a rotating disk supplier, the targets, and a control system to irradiate the targets at 1.25 Hz. We adjusted the laser focus and position on the target to obtain the maximum neutron yield.