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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.
Tapan Patel, Hardik D. Vyas, M. R. Jana, P. Chaudhuri, U. K. Baruah
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 81 | Number 1 | January 2025 | Pages 45-60
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2024.2332028
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This article outlines the development and examination of the properties of an asymmetrical dissimilar metal joint produced using friction welding (FW). Friction welding involving dissimilar materials, specifically a 50 mm (length) × 45 mm (width) × 20-mm (thickness) electrolytic tough pitch copper (ETP-Cu) plate and a 12.5-mm-diameter SS304L rod, was carried out. The assessment of the asymmetrically welded components encompassed ultrasonic testing, high-pressure helium gas testing, leak testing, tensile testing, scanning electron microscopy, optical microscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction analysis, hardness measurements, and elemental mapping via X-ray. Significantly, there was an observed increase in tensile strength, resulting in a joint efficiency of 86.50% compared to the ETP-Cu base material, following FW between an asymmetric ETP-Cu plate and SS304L rod. The study unveiled notable variations in the microstructure near the joint interface on the ETP-Cu material side. Intermetallic compounds, such as FeCu4 and Cu9Si phases, were detected within the reaction layer at the interface between ETP-Cu and SS304L, exhibiting a variable thickness ranging from 30 to 50 μm.