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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.
Renjing Fan, Peng Fu, Jun Tao, Ge Gao, Liansheng Huang, Zhiquan Song, Jinchao Li, Yulong Ye
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 76 | Number 1 | January 2020 | Pages 21-28
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2019.1610318
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The ITER poloidal field (PF) coil power supply system consists of 14 basic converter units that feed six superconducting coils. The converter unit is the complicated, challenging, and unique system to realize four-quadrant operation compatible with the superconductive load and the demand for plasma control. This paper describes the final design of the control strategies, which are implemented in the local controller of the PF converter system. They are zero crossing current control strategy in circulating operation mode, current balance control strategy in parallel operation mode, and hysteresis band control strategy in mode transition. In addition, the performance of the control system is demonstrated by the analysis, and the control strategies are validated by the simulations and corresponding tests.