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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.
Joseph B. Tipton, Jr., Arnold Lumsdaine, Charles Schaich, Gregory R. Hanson
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 72 | Number 4 | November 2017 | Pages 616-622
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1350486
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The ITER Electron Cyclotron Heating (ECH) system Transmission Lines (TL) require highly polished copper mirrors on miter bends (both 90° and 140°) to direct microwaves from their origin to the tokamak. This will result in substantial heat dissipation on the miter bends and mirrors and will require water cooling in order to achieve long pulse operation. Analysis and optimization of the cooling design for the 140° miter bend assembly used ANSYS® Multiphysics™ software to develop and verify the fluid, thermal, and structural behavior of the mirror and miter bend assembly. Simulation model choices included a thermo-mechanical model of the mirror-only, a thermo-mechanical model of the miter bend assembly, and a thermo-mechanical model of the mirror with coolant. These analyses revealed an optimal solution that uses a major-axis cooling channel configuration for the 140° miter bend to meet the design criteria (e.g. structural stresses, mirror deflection, vacuum seal, coolant temperatures and pressures).