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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.
S. W. Haan, D. S. Clark, C. R. Weber, S. H. Baxamusa, J. Biener, L. Berzak Hopkins, T. Bunn, D. A. Callahan, L. Carlson, M. J. Edwards, B. A. Hammel, A. Hamza, D. E. Hinkel, D. D. Ho, W. Hsing, H. Huang, O. A. Hurricane, M. A. Johnson, O. S. Jones, A. L. Kritcher, O. L. Landen, J. D. Lindl, M. M. Marinak, A. J. MacKinnon, N. B. Meezan, J. Milovich, A. Nikroo, J. L. Peterson, P. Patel, H. F. Robey, V. A. Smalyuk, B. K. Spears, M. Stadermann, J. L. Kline, D. C. Wilson, A. N. Simakov, A. Yi
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 73 | Number 2 | March 2018 | Pages 83-88
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1387014
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Experiments and analysis in the 2 years since the 2015 Target Fabrication Meeting have resulted in further evolution of the requirements for high-performance layered implosions. This paper is a status update on the experimental program and supporting modeling, with emphasis on the implications for fabrication requirements. Previous work on the capsule support has continued, with various other support options being explored in experiments and modeling. Work also continues on ablator composition nonuniformities, with important new results from CH experiments on Omega, and the first three-dimensional X-ray transmission measurements of Be capsules on the National Ignition Facility. Work on hohlraums continues to include near-vacuum hohlraums and U hohlraums without a gold lining. Overall, the understanding that has been achieved, along with the progress in fabrication technology, represents good continuing progress toward the goal of fusion in the laboratory.