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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.
V. Bykov, J. Zhu, A. Carls, J. Fellinger, P. van Eeten, H.-S. Bosch, L. Wegener
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 72 | Number 4 | November 2017 | Pages 546-558
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1352427
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The largest modular stellarator Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) has successfully passed commissioning and first phase of operation in Greifswald, Germany. The limiter configurations of plasma with 2.5 T of magnetic induction on the plasma axis produce already considerable loads (MN) in the W7-X systems. The sophisticated W7-X superconducting magnet system with its non-linear support system is instrumented with an extensive set of mechanical and temperature sensors. Measurement results showed that magnet system behavior is in good correspondence with original predictions from numerical models. However, several areas require modeling improvements and/or proper adjustment of parameters to reflect “as-built” situation. Moreover, high temperature dependence of strain gauge signal accuracy in the range below 10 K requires its compensation in order to avoid fault alarms during monitoring. The work is considered as benchmarking of numerical models and as a preparation for upcoming more demanding phases with longer plasma pulses to guarantee safe and reliable W7-X operation with different divertor configurations. Both results of W7-X measurements and implemented improvements as well as lessons learned so far are also given.