Abstract
Small modular reactors (SMRs) are those nuclear fission reactors with electrical output powers of less than 300 MWe. Due to its inherent safety features, the modular high temperature gas-cooled reactor (MHTGR) has been seen as one of the best candidates for building SMR-based nuclear plants with high safety-level and economical competitive power. Power-level control is crucial in providing grid-appropriation for all types of SMRs. Usually, there exists nonlinearity, parameter uncertainty and control input saturation in the SMR-based plant dynamics. Motivated by this, a novel saturated adaptive output-feedback power-level control of the MHTGR is proposed in this paper. This newly-built control law has the virtues of having relatively neat form, of being strong adaptive to parameter uncertainty and of being able to compensate control input saturation, which are given by constructing Lyapunov functions based upon the shifted-ectropies of neutron kinetics and reactor thermal-hydraulics, giving an online tuning algorithm for the controller parameters and proposing a control input saturation compensator respectively. It is proved theoretically that input-to-state stability (ISS) can be guaranteed for the corresponding closed-loop system. In order to verify the theoretical results, this new control strategy is then applied to the large-range power maneuvering control for the MHTGR of the HTR-PM plant. Numerical simulation results show not only the relationship between regulating performance and control input saturation bound but also the feasibility of applying this saturated adaptive control law practically.
Highlights
Nuclear fission energy is a crucial type of clean energy that can play an important role in meeting the world’s increasing energy needs
Safety is the most important issue to the development of the nuclear fission energy industry, which leads to the necessity of developing nuclear reactors with inherent safety features
In order to show the feasibility of the saturated adaptive output-feedback control law proposed in the above sections, it is applied to the power-level regulation for the modular high temperature gas-cooled reactor (MHTGR) of the HTR-PM plant
Summary
Nuclear fission energy is a crucial type of clean energy that can play an important role in meeting the world’s increasing energy needs. Safety is the most important issue to the development of the nuclear fission energy industry, which leads to the necessity of developing nuclear reactors with inherent safety features. SMRs could be beneficial in providing electric power to remote areas without transmission or distribution infrastructure, in generating local power for a large population center and in being viable for specific applications such as heat sources for industrial complexes. Through adopting a multi-modular scheme, i.e., multiple SMRs providing steam for one turbine/generator set, the inherent safety features can be applicable to large power plants of any desired power rating
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