High Precision Solenoid Type Nuclear Reactor Control Rod Position Indicator

Control Rod Position Indicator in nuclear reactor vessel has developed for small reactor in Korea. Because of severe environment in reactor vessel, target of this study is to develop the suitable position indicator. In this study, solenoid type position indicator made of Mineral Insulated Cable(MI Cable) was introduced to adapt in severe environment. And inductance of the solenoid was used to indicate the rod position for high precision. But problem of this concept is that a linear slope of inductance is changed by temperature effect. To resolve this problem, two sensing coils were introduced for temperature compensation. A role of the sensing coil is to make reference linear equation about certain temperature. To confirm this concept, also, inductance of solenoid and sensing coils were measured at room and high temperature (${\sim}300^{\circ}C$). The results of measurement show that the position error of sensing coil between room and high temperature was about 2%. But it was identified that this error was resulted from insufficient test environment (temperature error between solenoid and sensing coils was about 2% at high temperature condition). Therefore, solenoid type position indicator shows that it is very suitable in reactor vessel as a high precision rod position indicator.

고정밀도 솔레노이드 방식의 원자로 제어봉 위치지시기