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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.
Fumito Okino, Laetitia Frances, David Demange, Ryuta Kasada, Satoshi Konishi
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 71 | Number 4 | May 2017 | Pages 575-583
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1290972
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Quantitative feasibility analysis of the tritium recovery efficiency from multiple columns of liquid PbLi droplets was conducted. Then a case study based on the HCLL specification was performed. Main concern was whether the experimentally obtained recovery efficiency from a column of droplets is applicable for the efficiency estimation from the multiple columns of droplets without any mutual degrading effects. To maintaining a safe side assumption, the tritium once released and reabsorbed on another droplet was considered to be not re-emitted while falling. By the analogy with the thermal radiation theory, the view factor which expresses the intersection ratio of radiation on another surface was applied for the estimation. The dependences on nozzle design parameters, such as nozzle pitch, number of nozzles, chamber wall clearance, and exhaust port design, were investigated. Case study results suggest that, by choosing well-suited parameters approximately 40% to 60% of the single column recovery efficiency was secured for multiple columns even on the conservative condition. The release chamber exhaust port design had a major influence. Nozzle pitch and array design have less influences, but are not negligible. However, it has to be experimentally verified to the scale-size effects and experimental programs are currently underway.