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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.
Mazhyn Skakov, Gainiya Zhanbolatova, Arman Miniyazov, Timur Tulenbergenov, Igor Sokolov, Yerzhan Sapatayev, Yernat Kozhakhmetov, Olga Bukina
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 77 | Number 1 | January 2021 | Pages 57-66
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2020.1843885
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper presents the results of a study on impact of high-power heat load and tungsten (W) surface carbidization on its structural-phase composition and physical-mechanical properties. In this regard, carbidization of a W surface was carried out by means of beam-plasma discharge in a simulation machine with plasma-beam installation. Certain data were obtained regarding temperature in control points of studied samples and temperature distribution throughout the monoblock element, made as a rectangle with an orifice for a cooling path, placed in a fusion reactor divertor. The paper demonstrates that changes in heat load power have an impact on microhardness, roughness, atomization of the carbidized W surface, and phase formation processes. It was established that a heat load q = 10 MW/m2 has very little effect on the elemental composition of the surface and structural-phase composition of W samples with a carbidized layer. Growth of thermal load up to q = 20 MW/m2 leads to a noticeable transformation of tungsten monocarbide (WC) into tungsten semicarbide (W2C) and cracking of the W sample surface.