• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제38권6호
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• pp.551-560
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• 2006

In this study, a controller for a nuclear reactor power is designed. The reactor is modeled using the three dimensional reactor design code MASTER. From the relationship of the input and output of the reactor code, a reactor dynamic model is derived by the system identification method. This model is more realistic than the one based on mathematical theories. With this model, a robust controller is designed by the extended frequency response method. As this method has the same theoretical background as the classical method, all of the existing design techniques of the classical method can be used directly. Furthermore, by introducing the real part of a Laplacian operator into the frequency response, the control design specification can be considered at the initial stage of design. The designed controller is simple, and gives a sufficient robustness with good performance.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제55권5호
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• pp.1775-1782
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• 2023

Several reactor physics commissioning experiments were conducted to obtain the neutronic parameters at the beginning of the G.A. Siwabessy Multi-purpose Reactor (RSG-GAS) operation. These parameters are essential for the reactor to safety operate. Leveraging the experimental data, this study evaluated the calculated core reactivity, control rod reactivity worth, integral control rod reactivity curve, and fuel reactivity. Calculations were carried out with Serpent 2 code using the latest neutron cross-section data ENDF/B-VIII.0. The criticality calculations were carried out for the RSG-GAS first core up to the third core configuration, which has been done experimentally during these commissioning periods. The excess reactivity for the second and third cores showed a difference of 510.97 pcm and 253.23 pcm to the experiment data. The calculated integral reactivity of the control rod has an error of less than 1.0% compared to the experimental data. The calculated fuel reactivity value is consistent with the measured data, with a maximum error of 2.12%. Therefore, it can be concluded that the RSG-GAS reactor core model is in good agreement to reproduce excess reactivity, control rod worth, and fuel element reactivity.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제52권3호
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• pp.552-559
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• 2020

This paper presents an observer-based chattering free robust optimal control scheme to regulate the total power of a nuclear reactor. The non-linear model of nuclear reactor is linearized around a steady state operating point to obtain a linear model for which an optimal second order integral sliding mode controller is designed. A second order integral sliding mode observer is also designed to estimate the unmeasurable states. In order to avoid the chattering effect, the discontinuous input of both observer and controller are designed using the super-twisting algorithm. The proposed controller is realized by combining an optimal linear tracking controller with a second order integral sliding mode controller to ensure minimum control effort and robustness of the closed-loop system in the presence of uncertainties. The condition for the selection of gains of discontinuous control based on the super-twisting algorithm is derived using a strict Lyapunov function. Performance of the proposed observer based control scheme is demonstrated through non-linear simulation studies.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제49권1호
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• pp.134-140
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• 2017

A well-performed core power control to track load changes is crucial in pressurized water reactor (PWR) nuclear power stations. It is challenging to keep the core power stable at the desired value within acceptable error bands for the safety demands of the PWR due to the sensitivity of nuclear reactors. In this paper, a state-space model predictive control (MPC) method was applied to the control of the core power. The model for core power control was based on mathematical models of the reactor core, the MPC model, and quadratic programming (QP). The mathematical models of the reactor core were based on neutron dynamic models, thermal hydraulic models, and reactivity models. The MPC model was presented in state-space model form, and QP was introduced for optimization solution under system constraints. Simulations of the proposed state-space MPC control system in PWR were designed for control performance analysis, and the simulation results manifest the effectiveness and the good performance of the proposed control method for core power control.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제52권3호
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• pp.544-551
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• 2020

Reactor control is a standout amongst the most vital issues in the nuclear power plant. In this paper, the optimal design of variable structure controller (VSC) based on the lightning search algorithm (LSA) is proposed for a nuclear reactor power system. The LSA is a new optimization algorithm. It is used to find the optimal parameters of the VSC instead of the trial and error method or experts of the designer. The proposed algorithm is used for the tuning of the feedback gains and the sliding equation gains of the VSC to prove a good performance. Furthermore, the parameters of the VSC are tuned by the genetic algorithm (GA). Simulation tests are carried out to verify the performance and robustness of the proposed LSA-based VSC compared with GA-based VSC. The results prove the high performance and the superiority of VSC based on LSA compared with VSC based on GA.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제41권1호
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• pp.71-78
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• 2009

One of main concepts involved in regional small nuclear reactors is unmanned remote control. Internet-based virtual private networks provide environments for the remote monitoring and control of geographically-dispersed systems, and with the advances in communication technologies, the potential of networks for real time control and automation becomes enormous. However, networked control has some problems. The most critical is delay in signal transmission, which degrades system stability and performance. Therefore, a networked control system should be designed to account for delay. This paper proposes some design approaches for a delay-tolerant system that can guarantee predetermined stability margins and performance. To accomplish this, the reactor plant is modeled with consideration of uncertainties. With this model, three kinds of controllers are developed using different methods. The designed systems are compared with respect to stability and performance, and a second-order controller designed using the table lookup method was found to give the most satisfactory results.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제52권7호
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• pp.1443-1451
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• 2020

The objective of this study is to design a robust power control system for a small pressurized water reactor (PWR) to achieve stable power operations under conditions of external disturbances and internal model uncertainties. For this purpose, the multiple-input multiple-output transfer function models of the reactor core at five power levels are derived from point reactor kinetics equations and the Mann's thermodynamic model. Using the transfer function models, five local reactor power controllers are designed using an H infinity (H_∞) mixed sensitivity method to minimize the core power disturbance under various uncertainties at the five power levels, respectively. Then a multimodel approach with triangular membership functions is employed to integrate the five local controllers into a multimodel robust control system that is applicable for the entire power range. The performance of the robust power system is assessed against 10% of full power (FP) step load increase transients with coolant inlet temperature disturbances at different power levels and large-scope, rapid ramp load change transient. The simulation results show that the robust control system could maintain satisfactory control performance and good robustness of the reactor under external disturbances and internal model uncertainties, demonstrating the effective of the robust power control design.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제49권4호
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• pp.855-864
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• 2017

The control rod assembly controls reactor power by adjusting its position during normal operation and shuts down chain reactions by its free drop under scram conditions. Therefore, the drop performance of the control rod assembly is important for the safety of a nuclear reactor. In this study, the drop performance of the conceptually designed control rod assembly for the prototype generation IV sodium-cooled fast reactor that is being developed at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute as a next-generation nuclear reactor was experimentally investigated. For the performance test, the test facility and test procedure were established first, and several free drop performance tests of the control rod assembly under different flow rate conditions were then carried out. Moreover, performance tests under several types and magnitudes of seismic loading conditions were also conducted to investigate the effects of seismic loading on the drop performance of the control rod assembly. The drop time of the conceptually designed control rod assembly for 0% of the tentatively designed flow rate was measured to be 1.527 seconds, and this agrees well with the analytically calculated drop time. It was also observed that the effect of seismic loading on the drop time was not significant.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제37권2호
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• pp.139-150
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• 2005

A robust control design procedure for a nuclear reactor has been developed and experimentally validated on the Penn State TRIGA research reactor. The utilization of the robust controller as a component of an autonomous control system is also demonstrated. Two methods of specifying a low order (fourth-order) nominal-plant model for a robust control design were evaluated: 1) by approximation based on the 'physics' of the process and 2) by an optimal Hankel approximation of a higher order plant model. The uncertainty between the nominal plant models and the higher order plant model is supplied as a specification to the ,u-synthesis robust control design procedure. Two methods of quantifying uncertainty were evaluated: 1) a combination of additive and multiplicative uncertainty and 2) multiplicative uncertainty alone. The conclusions are that the optimal Hankel approximation and a combination of additive and multiplicative uncertainty are the best approach to design robust control for this application. The results from nonlinear simulation testing and the physical experiments are consistent and thus help to confirm the correctness of the robust control design procedures and conclusions.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제39권1호
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• pp.63-74
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• 2007

In this paper, a reconfigurable controller consisting of a normal controller and a standby controller is designed to control the thermoelectric (TE) power in the SP-100 space reactor. The normal controller uses a model predictive control (MPC) method where the future TE power is predicted by using support vector regression. A genetic algorithm that can effectively accomplish multiple objectives is used to optimize the normal controller. The performance of the normal controller depends on the capability of predicting the future TE power. Therefore, if the prediction performance is degraded, the proportional-integral (PI) controller of the standby controller begins to work instead of the normal controller. Performance deterioration is detected by a sequential probability ratio test (SPRT). A lumped parameter simulation model of the SP-100 nuclear space reactor is used to verify the proposed reconfigurable controller. The results of numerical simulations to assess the performance of the proposed controller show that the TE generator power level controlled by the proposed reconfigurable controller could track the target power level effectively, satisfying all control constraints. Furthermore, the normal controller is automatically switched to the standby controller when the performance of the normal controller degrades.