A DIRECT DIGITAL CONTROL STUDY FOR NUCLEAR REACTOR SYSTEMS

CLARENCE LEON PARTAIN, Purdue University

Abstract

By the use of digital simulation, the direct digital control of nuclear reactor systems can be studied. Direct digital control offers advantages over conventional analog control in that it can provide more flexible, efficient, and economic control. The major emphasis in this study has been the development and optimization of an appropriate automatic control algorithm. This algorithm has been demonstrated to be valid under conditions of increasing reactor power, decreasing power, startup without neutron noise, startup in the presence of a Gaussian distribution of random noise, and orderly shutdown. Because of the prohibitive cost involved in experimentation and the hesitation of reactor managers to hand over reactor control to computers, it is concluded that a digital simulation study of this kind is particularly useful in the development and design of the necessary digital controller and control algorithm.

Degree

Ph.D.

Subject Area

Nuclear engineering|Energy|Nuclear physics

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