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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.
Kedar Bhope, Vinay Menon, Sunil Belsare, Samir Khirwadkar, Rajamannar Swamy, Mayur Mehta, Premjit Singh Kongkham, Tushar Patel, Nikunj Patel, Prakash Mokariya
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 80 | Number 8 | November 2024 | Pages 931-940
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2023.2260536
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Institute for Plasma Research (IPR) is involved in the development of various technologies for fabrication and testing/qualification of tungsten (W)–based plasma-facing components for ITER-like applications. As a part of these activities, a small-scale W/Cu/CuCrZr monoblock test mock-up is prepared by using a vacuum brazing process. Further, thermal fatigue testing of this test mock-up is performed using the High Heat Flux Test Facility at IPR under an absorbed heat flux of ~9.5 MW/m2 for 1200 thermal cycles. Thermal-hydraulic analysis and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations are also performed to understand the heat flux testing scenario. Nondestructive testing of the test mock-up after thermal cyclic heat flux testing indicates that there are no defects in the test mock-up except for minor cracks on the surface of W tiles. The results of thermal cyclic testing, finite element analysis, CFD analysis, and postanalysis of the High Heat Flux test are presented in the paper.