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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.
M. C. Huang, C. D. Hu, C. C. Jiang, Y. Z. Zhao, Y. H. Xie, J. L. Wei, S. Y. Chen, Q. L. Cui, J. J. Pan, Y. L. Xie
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 75 | Number 4 | May 2019 | Pages 330-337
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2018.1557985
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Negative ion beam source test equipment, currently under construction at Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, is a prototype of a radio-frequency (RF) ion source for neutral beam injection. An extraction grid power supply (EGPS) for the RF ion source is utilized to extract negative ions. To acquire the output of the EGPS and assure its safe operation, an interlock protection system has been designed. The system meets the requirements of anti-interference signal transmission and management of fast protection in order to minimize adverse consequences. The system takes care of breakdowns occurring during normal operation. All the required functions are implemented by hard-wired circuits, so the response time of fault protection can be less than . This technical note describes the rationale of the isolated transmission and protection functions and presents the implementation of functions in the detailed design. System performance during the experimental tests is described, with emphasis on demonstration of the protection.