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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.
Fuqiang Wang, Jian Chen, Hong Cui, Alin Ji, Dong Xie, Zhaofu Zhang
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 78 | Number 3 | April 2022 | Pages 243-252
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2021.1978743
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The coating technology of tungsten on carbon/carbon (C/C) composite is an important issue for fusion experimental device components. In this study, an interlayer of chemical vapor deposition SiC between tungsten coating and C/C substrate was used. A tungsten coating 320 μm thick was successfully deposited on SiC-coated C/C substrate by inert plasma spray. The microstructure, roughness, and constituents of W-SiC-C/C composite materials were investigated using a scanning electron microscope, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscope, X-ray diffractometer, and atomic force microscope. The tungsten coating structure that may prevent crack propagation essentially consisted of a stacked lamellar columnar microstructure and particle cluster microstructures. The interfaces between the tungsten and SiC coating and between the SiC coating and the C/C were clear. The SiC interlayer acts as a barrier for carbon and tungsten diffusion. The thermal conductivity of the system was calculated by the mixture rule, which was 47.33 to 82.35 W/(m·K). The thermal expansion coefficient of W-SiC-C/C was negative at room temperature and up to 1.5 × 10−6/K for elevated temperature.