skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Definition of a Robust Supervisory Control Scheme for Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactors

Conference ·
OSTI ID:1312728

In this work, an innovative control approach for metal-fueled Sodium-cooled Fast Reactors is proposed. With respect to the classical approach adopted for base-load Nuclear Power Plants, an alternative control strategy for operating the reactor at different power levels by respecting the system physical constraints is presented. In order to achieve a higher operational flexibility along with ensuring that the implemented control loops do not influence the system inherent passive safety features, a dedicated supervisory control scheme for the dynamic definition of the corresponding set-points to be supplied to the PID controllers is designed. In particular, the traditional approach based on the adoption of tabulated lookup tables for the set-point definition is found not to be robust enough when failures of the implemented SISO (Single Input Single Output) actuators occur. Therefore, a feedback algorithm based on the Reference Governor approach, which allows for the optimization of reference signals according to the system operating conditions, is proposed.

Research Organization:
Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy
DOE Contract Number:
AC02-06CH11357
OSTI ID:
1312728
Resource Relation:
Conference: 2016 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants, 04/17/16 - 04/20/16, San Francisco, CA, US
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English