DESIGN OF A FPGA BASED ABWR FEEDWATER CONTROLLER

A feedwater controller targeted for an ABWR has been implemented using a modern field programmable gate array (FPGA), and verified using the full scope simulator at Taipower's Lungmen nuclear power station. The adopted control algorithm is a rule-based fuzzy logic. Point to point validation of the FPGA circuit board has been executed using a digital pattern generator. The simulation model of the simulator was employed for verification and validation of the controller design under various plant initial conditions. The transient response and the steady state tracking ability were evaluated and showed satisfactory results. The present work has demonstrated that the FPGA based approach incorporated with a rule-based fuzzy logic control algorithm is a flexible yet feasible approach for feedwater controller design in nuclear power plant applications.