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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.
Baoling Zhang, Shuoyang Fang, Jun Wang, Xue Su, Shujian Tian
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 77 | Number 6 | August 2021 | Pages 437-445
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2021.1927583
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Helium bubble growth and coalescence in the slip plane as well as the influence on substrate were studied using the molecular dynamics method. In the slip plane, the helium bubbles grow first along the slip plane and then grow toward the side which is short one atomic layer in the form of a hexagonal structure at low temperature. The growth rates of helium bubbles are related to the addition rate of helium atoms and their surrounding environments. After coalescence, the coalesced helium bubble grows first toward the side that is short one atomic layer. Then it grows along the slip plane with a velocity less than the growth rate before coalescence. Helium bubble growth and coalescence in the slip plane have significant influence on the substrate. During the process, the preexisting slipping metal atoms are pushed back to the normal lattice sites, and the crystal structure of the metal is recovered around the helium bubbles. The recovered area changes with the number of helium atoms in the bubble and the temperature of the substrate. The simulation results indicate that the preexisting grain boundary is beneficial for enhancing the helium damage resistance of metal.