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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.
F. Bonelli, L. V. Boccaccini, B.-E. Ghidersa, Q. Kang, L. Savoldi, R. Zanino
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 68 | Number 3 | October 2015 | Pages 507-511
Technical Paper | Proceedings of TOFE-2014 | doi.org/10.13182/FST14-985
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The first 3D thermal-fluid-dynamic and structural analyses done for the design and pre-test assessment of the so-called Thermo-Cycle Mock-up (TCM), reproducing about 0.3 m2 of a flat first wall (FW) with relevant helium cooling channels, are presented, based also on previous computational and experimental activities conducted at KIT but limited so far to a single cooling channel with straight heated length. The TCM is the first of a series of FW mock-ups presently under construction, to be tested starting from 2015 in the large HELOKA facility at KIT. Here, the fluid dynamics in the 180° turns of the TCM cooling channels is investigated together with the effects of heat transfer between neighboring channels, when the plate is subject to steady-state heat fluxes in the range 0.3-0.5 MW/m2. Based on the computed temperature maps, the stresses in the TCM and the related damage figures for the main failure modes (i.e., ratcheting and creep/fatigue) are assessed. These are compared with allowable limits in code and standards for the qualification of the TCM design and related to the prediction of the behavior of the component in the actual fusion environment.