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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.
A. Khodak, G. Loesser, Y. Zhai, V. Udintsev, J. Klabacha, W. Wang, D. Johnson, R. Feder
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 68 | Number 3 | October 2015 | Pages 521-525
Technical Paper | Proceedings of TOFE-2014 | doi.org/10.13182/FST14-955
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Numerical simulations of the ITER Diagnostic First Wall (DFW) were performed using ANSYS workbench. During operation DFW will include solid main body as well as liquid coolant. Thus thermal and hydraulic analysis of the DFW was performed using conjugated heat transfer approach, in which heat transfer was resolved in both solid and liquid parts, and simultaneously fluid dynamics analysis was performed only in the liquid part. This approach includes interface between solid and liquid part of the system. Analysis was performed using ANSYS CFX software. CFX software allows solution of heat transfer equations in solid and liquid part, and solution of the flow equations in the liquid part. Coolant flow in the DFW was assumed turbulent and was resolved using Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes equations with Shear Stress Transport turbulence model. Meshing was performed using CFX method available within ANSYS. The data cloud for thermal loading consisting of volumetric heating and surface heating was imported into CFX. Volumetric heating source was generated using Attila software. Surface heating was obtained using radiation heat transfer analysis.
Results allowed to identify areas of excessive heating. Proposals for cooling channel relocation were made. Additional suggestions were made to improve hydraulic performance of the cooling system.