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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.
Akio Sagara, Teruya Tanaka, Juro Yagi, Mitsutoshi Takahashi, Kuniaki Miura, Takehiko Yokomine, Satoshi Fukada, Shintaro Ishiyama
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 68 | Number 2 | September 2015 | Pages 303-307
Technical Paper | Proceedings of TOFE-2014 | doi.org/10.13182/FST15-126
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A Flinak/LiPb twin-loop Orosh2i-2 was constructed in the Fusion Engineering Research Project of NIFS to establish an engineering basis for the “real function” of a liquid blanket for fusion energy reactors. It was constructed with a 3 T superconducting magnet, which is the strongest in the world for these purposes. In this study, 120 litter Flinak and LiPb were successfully prepared in-situ in a purified glove-box. Designed flow velocity up to 1.5 m/sec was achieved for both. The magnetic field and velocity dependence on pressure drop agreed well with theoretical predictions. Tentative plans for phased experiments within the next few years have been presented, including operation of Supercritical-CO2 Turbine (SCOT) power generation system in the Flinak loop.