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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.
J. Mishra, R. Gangradey, P. Nayak, S. Mukherjee
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 78 | Number 3 | April 2022 | Pages 211-219
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2021.1985905
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Based on the ideal gas gun theory (IGT) approximation, an analytical study of solid hydrogen pellet motion in a gas gun–type pellet injector has been performed. A parametric investigation has been conducted to study the pellet speed dependence on the gun characteristics and the propellant conditions. The calculations have been verified by applying various experimental data reported from the literature. Experimental results are within 70% to 90% of the ideal IGT and are in line with global predictions. Calculations indicate that the speed of the pellet has a strong dependence on the propellant pressure and its mass, and a weak dependence on the length of the gun barrel. In addition, the effects of shock waves due to the sudden opening of the propellant valve and some nonideal effects, such as the effect of friction at the propellant pellet–wall interface, have been studied. The results of the calculations have been verified by applying them to the experimental results.