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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.
Seong Dae Park, Dong Won Lee, Dong Jun Kim, Seungyon Cho
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 72 | Number 4 | November 2017 | Pages 801-806
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1347467
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The helium cooled ceramic reflector (HCCR) test blanket module (TBM) has been designed to be installed in ITER and to verify the tritium production and the heat extraction in Korea. Lithium, beryllium, and graphite are used as a breeder, a neutron multiplier, and a reflector, respectively, which called as breeding zone (BZ) including cooling plate. The BZ was operated with the highest temperature in the TBM due to the nucler heating not only in breeding material but also structure. The margin to the allowable temperature for the breeder is very small in the current conceptual design of HCCR TBM. In the present study, feasible methods were investigated to lower the maximum temperature of the BZ. The thermal resistance and the effect of each factor were studied with a conventional CFD code, ANSYS-CFX v14.5. It is found that the thermal resistance related to the pebble beds layer was main factor to determine the breeder temperature, and the installation of the cooling fins could reduce the heat transfer resistance and lower the maximum temperature of breeder about 80°C.