• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.3
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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.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.829-836
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• 2006

The reaction rate of denitrification is primarily affected by the utilization of organics that are usually limited in the anoxic period in a sequencing batch reactor. It is necessary to add an extemal carbon source for sufficient denitrification. An adaptive model of state-space based on the extended Kalman filter is applied to manipulate the dosage rate of extemal carbon automatically. Control strategies for denitrification have been studied to improve control performance through simulations. The normal control strategy of the constant set-point results in the overdosage of external carbon and deterioration of water quality. To prevent the overdosage of external carbon, improved control strategies such as the constrained control action, variable set-point, and variable set-point after dissolved oxygen depletion are required. More stable control is obtained through the application of the variable set-point after dissolved oxygen depletion. The converging value of the estimated denitrification coefficient reflects conditions in the reactor.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.922-932
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• 2024

This paper presents the design features and preliminary design analysis results of the Wielenga Innovation Static Salt Reactor (WISSR). The WISSR incorporates features that make it both flexible and inherently safe. It is based on innovative technology that controls a nuclear reactor by moving molten salt fuel into or out of the core. The reactor is a low-pressure, fast spectrum transuranic (TRU) burner reactor. Inherent shutdown is achieved by a large negative reactivity feedback of the liquid fuel and by the expansion of fuel out of the core. The core is made of concentric, thin annular fuel chambers containing molten fuel salt. A molten salt coolant passes between the concentric fuel chambers to cool the core. The core has both fixed and variable volume fuel chambers. Pressure, applied by helium gas to fuel reservoirs below the core, pushes fuel out of a reservoir and up into a set of variable volume chambers. A control system monitors the density and temperature of the fuel throughout the core. Using NaCl-(TRU,U)Cl₃ fuel and NaCl-KCl-MgCl₂ coolant, a road-transportable compact WISSR core design was developed at a power level of 1250 MWt. Preliminary neutronics and thermal-hydraulics analyses demonstrate the technical feasibility of WISSR.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.7
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• pp.2435-2443
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• 2022

The once-through steam generator used in the small modular reactor needs to consider the stability of the outlet steam pressure and steam superheat of the secondary circuit to achieve better operating efficiency. For this reason, this paper designs a controllable operation scheme for the steam pressure and superheat of the small reactor once-through steam generator. On this basis, designs a variable universe fuzzy controller, first, design the fuzzy control rules to make the controller adjust the PI controller parameters according to the change of the error; secondly, use the domain adjustment factor to further subdivide the input and output domain of the fuzzy controller according to the change of the error, to improve the system control performance. The simulation results show that the operation scheme proposed in this paper have better system performance than the original scheme of the small reactor system, and controller proposed in this paper have better control performance than traditional PI controller and fuzzy PI controller, what's more, the designed control system also showed better anti-disturbance performance in lifting experiment between 100% and 80% working conditions. Finally, the experimental platform formed by connecting the digital small reactor with Matlab/Simulink through OPC(OLE for Process Control) communication technology also verified the feasibility of the proposed scheme.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.8
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• pp.2952-2965
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• 2023

Advanced reactors, such as Small Modular Reactors or existing Nuclear Power Plants, often use Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) based controllers in new Instrumentation and Control (I&C) system architectures or as an alternative to existing analog-based I&C systems. Compared to CPU-based Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs), FPGAs offer better overall performance. However, programming functions on FPGAs can be challenging due to the requirement for a hardware description language that does not explicitly support the operation of real numbers. This study aims to implement the Reactor Trip (RT) functions of the existing analog-based Reactor Protection System (RPS) using FPGAs. The RT equations for Overtemperature delta Temperature and Overpower delta Temperature involve dynamic compensators expressed with the Laplace transform variable, 's', which is not directly supported by FPGAs. To address this issue, the trip equations with the Laplace variable in the continuous-time domain are transformed to the discrete-time domain using the Z-transform. Additionally, a new operation based on a relative value for the equation range is introduced for the handling of real numbers in the RT functions. The proposed approach can be utilized for upgrading the existing analog-based RPS as well as digitalizing control systems in advanced reactor systems.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 1984.07a
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• pp.92-95
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• 1984

This paper describes a general method for the design of variable structure Model-Following Control systems (VSMFC). This design concept is developed using the theory of variable structure systems and slide mode. The feasibility and the advantages of the method are illustrated by applying it to a 1000 MWe Boiling Water Reactor. The control is studied in the range of 85 - 90 % of rated power for load-following control. A set of 12 nonlinear differential eq. are used to simulate the total plant. A 6th order linear model has been developed from these equations at 85% of rated power. The obtained controller is shown by simulations to be able to compensate for a plant parameter variation over a wide power range.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 1999.10a
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• pp.252-255
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• 1999

Feed rate in the fed-batch reactor is the most important control variable in optimizing the reactor performance. Exact solution can be obtained only for limited cases of simple reactor. The complexity of the model equations makes it extremely difficult to solve fur the general class of system models. Evolutionary programming method is proposed to get the information of the profile types, and the final profile is calculated by that information. The modified evolutionary programming method is used to get the more optimal profiles and it is demonstrated that proposed method can solve a wide range of optimal control problems.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.12-16
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• 2007

Temperature control of an autothermal methanol reforming reactor which uses the copper-zinc oxide catalyst was studied. Temperature at 1cm below the hot-spot point in the reactor was used for the controlled variable, and the air flow rate was used for the manipulated variable. A first order plus time delay model was identified and controller parameters were obtained by applying the IMC-PI tuning rule to the identified model. With this controller, we could control the reforming reactor temperature within ${\pm}5^{\circ}C$ over 100 hours. Change of the hot-spot point due to the catalyst degradation was investigated and it could be used to design an adaptive controller.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.9
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• pp.3326-3333
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• 2023

The results of the analysis of a mathematical modeling for the IBR-2M pulsed reactor dynamics for a transition from a power pulse repetition frequency of 5 Hz-10 Hz are presented. The change in the amplitude response of the reactor for variable pulse delayed neutron fraction was studied. We used a set of power feedback parameters determined experimentally in 2021 at an energy output of 1820 MW·day. At a pulse repetition frequency of 10 Hz, the amplitude of pulse energy oscillations significantly depends on the value of the delayed neutron fraction in pulse β_p. Depending on β_p both suppression and amplification of reactor power fluctuations in the frequency ranges of 0.05-0.20 and 1.25-5.00 Hz can be realized.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.50 no.1
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• pp.97-106
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• 2018

Improved load-following capability is one of the most important technical tasks of a pressurized water reactor. Controlling the nuclear reactor core during load-following operation leads to some difficulties. These difficulties mainly arise from nuclear reactor core limitations in local power peaking: the core is subjected to sharp and large variation of local power density during transients. Axial offset (AO) is the parameter usually used to represent the core power peaking. One of the important local power peaking components in nuclear reactors is axial power peaking, which continuously changes. The main challenge of nuclear reactor control during load-following operation is to maintain the AO within acceptable limits, at a certain reference target value. This article proposes a new robust approach to AO control of pressurized water reactors during load-following operation. This method uses robust feedback-linearization control based on the multipoint kinetics reactor model (neutronic and thermal-hydraulic). In this model, the reactor core is divided into four nodes along the reactor axis. Simulation results show that this method improves the reactor load-following capability in the presence of parameter uncertainty and disturbances and can use optimum control rod groups to maneuver with variable overlapping.