Submission Title
Trends in Nuclear Reactor Control: Load Following Operation
Presentation Type
Invited
Start Date
16-12-2018 2:50 PM
Abstract
Nuclear reactors are usually operated as base load stations mainly because of the difficulty of controlling them as load followers. The difficulty arises because of the non-linear dynamics of a nuclear reactor and the constraints on rate of reactivity addition, as well as Xenon oscillations . However, under the changing scenario of power pricing e.g. the Availability Based Tariff in our country , it is often necessary to operate a Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) as a load follower rather than a base load plant.
While a Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) is known to possess inherent load-following characteristics because of its basic self-regulating dynamics, modulating reactor power to cater to fast changing demand requires activation of control mechanisms. Control mechanism activation may also be required for frequency error correction. It has been established that in a PWR with a neutronically large core, load following maneuvers often lead to Xenon oscillations leading to fluctuations in the global reactor power. On the contrary, modular PWR units do not have the problem of Xenon oscillations because of compact cores associated with each module, but pose challenges in terms of synchronized operation of different modules driving a common turbine. The talk discusses use of non-linear control techniques for tackling these problems.
Over the last few decades, some research groups have attempted to achieve load following in a Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor (PHWR), at least in a limited way. The talk discusses a technique based on interval mathematics to achieve limited load following in a 540 MWe PHWR.
Recommended Citation
Gupta, Amitiva (2018). "Trends in Nuclear Reactor Control: Load Following Operation," Symposium on Advanced Sensors and Modeling Techniques for Nuclear Reactor Safety.
Trends in Nuclear Reactor Control: Load Following Operation
Nuclear reactors are usually operated as base load stations mainly because of the difficulty of controlling them as load followers. The difficulty arises because of the non-linear dynamics of a nuclear reactor and the constraints on rate of reactivity addition, as well as Xenon oscillations . However, under the changing scenario of power pricing e.g. the Availability Based Tariff in our country , it is often necessary to operate a Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) as a load follower rather than a base load plant.
While a Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) is known to possess inherent load-following characteristics because of its basic self-regulating dynamics, modulating reactor power to cater to fast changing demand requires activation of control mechanisms. Control mechanism activation may also be required for frequency error correction. It has been established that in a PWR with a neutronically large core, load following maneuvers often lead to Xenon oscillations leading to fluctuations in the global reactor power. On the contrary, modular PWR units do not have the problem of Xenon oscillations because of compact cores associated with each module, but pose challenges in terms of synchronized operation of different modules driving a common turbine. The talk discusses use of non-linear control techniques for tackling these problems.
Over the last few decades, some research groups have attempted to achieve load following in a Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor (PHWR), at least in a limited way. The talk discusses a technique based on interval mathematics to achieve limited load following in a 540 MWe PHWR.
