Title: Embedding nuclear physics rules and fuel chemistry limits in control algorithms for a fuel-efficient nuclear reactor

Authors: Shantanu Das, Bibhuranjan Basudeb Biswas

Addresses: Reactor Control Division BARC, Mumbai, India. ' Reactor Control Division BARC, Mumbai, India

Abstract: In a nuclear reactor, the energy which is stored in the fuel is proportional to the amount of fissile material. The consumption of that amount, after a set burn-up, should and must result in delivering a set energy, barring leakages (losses). The loss of energy due to an inefficient control algorithm, after a set burn-up, is a problem that no one has yet addressed. Nuclear fuel chemists and metallurgists may have a given amount of fuel with a set energy content, but control system engineers, treating a nuclear reactor as a conventional PID (Proportional Integral Derivative) control system, use lots of control energy to stabilise the nuclear reactor power and also thereby consume |unnecessary| fuel energy. The aim of this paper is to draw attention to basic neutronic behaviour of a nuclear reactor and to control it in its natural physics instead of treating it as a conventional PID.

Keywords: fuel efficiency; reactor control; logarithmic logics; log-rate hyperbole; power control; period control; reactor P–T plane; shaped-normalised reactor period function; nuclear reactors; nuclear energy; nuclear power; nuclear physics; fuel chemistry; energy loss; nuclear fuel.

DOI: 10.1504/IJNGEE.2007.014672

International Journal of Nuclear Governance, Economy and Ecology, 2007 Vol.1 No.3, pp.244 - 264

Published online: 24 Jul 2007 *

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