Reactivity and Delayed Neutron Precursors’ Concentration Estimation Based on Recursive Nonlinear Dynamic Data Reconciliation Technique

Abstract

Reactivity is widely used as the paramount means for defining nuclear reactor status, but there is no physical sensor available to measure this parameter directly. Similarly delayed neutron precursors’ concentrations, the source of the delayed neutrons which play important role in reactor control cannot be measured directly. Hence, these quantities must be calculated or estimated from observed neutron flux transients. Recently, Kalman filter (KF) and its variants have been used for the reactivity estimation. A key limitation of KF and all of its variants is that they cannot account for the constraints on state variables systematically, which may cause the filter’s instability. In this paper, a constrained estimator based on the recursive nonlinear dynamic data reconciliation technique is proposed for the estimation of reactivity and delayed neutron precursors’ concentrations in the nuclear reactor. The effectiveness of the proposed technique has been evaluated through the step test signal in the presence of measurement noise and experimental power variation data sets collected from one of the Indian reactors.