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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.
H. H. Toudeshki, C. J. Martin, F. Najmabadi, J. P. Blanchard
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 68 | Number 3 | October 2015 | Pages 535-540
Technical Paper | Proceedings of TOFE-2014 | doi.org/10.13182/FST15-112
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
ARIES ACT-1 is a conceptual design for a commercial tokamak with aggressive physics and engineering. In the spirit of advanced engineering, the vacuum vessel design employed several novel concepts. It eliminates the use of water cooling in order to allow higher temperature operation and reduce the tritium inventory. It employs a low activation bainitic steel that eliminates the need for post-weld heat treatment. It includes sufficient volume to accommodate a full loss of coolant accident. Finally, it employs a novel mechanical design in order to withstand the operating stresses during normal operation, anticipated transients, and disruptions. In this paper, we present the most recent design for this component, update the stress analysis confirming the suitability of the design, and present results for disruption forces due to a plasma quench.