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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.
Wei Zhao, Yali Wang, Yuzhong Jin, Li Zhao, Hongxia Zhou, Lin Nie, Guangwu Zhong, Chunjia Liu, Christopher Watts, James Paul Gunn
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 76 | Number 2 | February 2020 | Pages 79-87
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2019.1674123
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The primary aim of the ITER divertor Langmuir probe system is to measure the plasma parameters at the divertor target plates. Saturation ion flux coming from the direct-current biased probe mode is used for advanced machine control, and the swept double-probe mode is recommended to measure electron temperature and density for physics studies. The design of the probe system includes three parts. First, tungsten Langmuir probes are mounted on the side of the target plates for collecting current from plasma, and thermomechanical simulation results show the design of the probe is robust and can survive under harsh working environments. Second, the electronics consists of the power supply, mode switching, and signal conditioning box and is used for driving Langmuir probes in different operation modes to obtain expected plasma information. Third, the functions of instrument and control include publishing configuration; monitoring and control; calibration; data acquisition; communication with the control, data access and communication (CODAC) system; and real-time ion flux measurement at the divertor target. The system design also complies with ITER’s technical practices, standards, and codes.