ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
August 24–27, 2026
Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
Latest Magazine Issues
Jun 2026
Jan 2026
2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
July 2026
Nuclear Technology
June 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
May 2026
Latest News
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.
Jonathan Coburn, Mohamed Bourham
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 72 | Number 4 | November 2017 | Pages 692-698
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1352426
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Innovative materials are investigated using a simulated electrothermal (ET) plasma to characterize erosion characteristics under ITER-relevant off-normal conditions. The tungsten alternatives investigated are mono-crystalline silicon carbides and MAX Phase ceramics. Preliminary code simulations using the ETFLOW plasma code are presented to assess erosive behavior in preparation for future experiments at ORNL’s electrothermal high heat flux experiment and the DiMES experiments for induced disruption on the DIII-D tokamak. Results indicate that erosion properties for SiC and two commercially available MAX Phases, Ti3SiC2 and Ti2AlC, compare well with tungsten and other ITER relevant components. A material-specific ablation constant, measured as total mass removed per incident heat flux per second, serves as a means for directly comparing erosion properties. Tungsten possesses the highest ablation constant value when compared to carbon, beryllium and the alternative materials α-6H SiC, Ti3SiC2, and Ti2AlC. The ablation thickness, calculated from the ablation constant and the specific density of the material, provides a comparison of surface thickness lost during a given off-normal event. Carbon (4.25 cm3/MJ) and tungsten (5.98 cm3/MJ) possess the lowest values. The alternative materials Ti3SiC2 (7.32 cm3/MJ) and α-6H SiC (8.44 cm3/MJ) exhibit the next best values, with Ti2AlC being the least effective (9.35 cm3/MJ). SiC shows the best vapor shielding efficiency of the three alternative materials, with Ti3SiC2 and Ti2AlC giving similar efficiencies. Taking into account vapor shielding effects using both opacity and fractional models, SiC exhibits the best ablation characteristics of the three materials in terms of thickness loss, with Ti3SiC2 giving similar results and overall appearing the superior of the two MAX Phases.
