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Division Spotlight
Fuel Cycle & Waste Management
Devoted to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle including waste management, worldwide. Division specific areas of interest and involvement include uranium conversion and enrichment; fuel fabrication, management (in-core and ex-core) and recycle; transportation; safeguards; high-level, low-level and mixed waste management and disposal; public policy and program management; decontamination and decommissioning environmental restoration; and excess weapons materials disposition.
Meeting Spotlight
2024 ANS Winter Conference and Expo
November 17–21, 2024
Orlando, FL|Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Latest News
New laws offer nuclear industry incentives for existing power plant uprates
This year, the U.S. nuclear industry received a much-needed economic boost that could help preserve operating nuclear power plants and incentivize upgrades that extend their lifespan and power output.
Signed into law in 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act offers production tax credits (PTCs) for existing nuclear power plants and either PTCs or investment tax credits (ITCs) for new carbon-free generation. These credits could make power uprates—increasing the maximum power level at which a commercial plant may operate—a much more appealing option for utilities.
Richard B. Vilim, Humberto E. Garcia
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 125 | Number 3 | March 1997 | Pages 324-336
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE97-A24278
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Next generation pool-type power plants will require advanced control techniques to meet operational and safety goals. This is the conclusion after conducting control experiments in the Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II) to demonstrate a supervisory so-called passive control scheme. The proportional-integral-derivative controller in EBR-II did not adequately compensate for disturbances to inlet temperature that occurred during normal power changes. The key to better control is to take into account the stratification and energy interchange mechanisms in the primary pool through which these disturbances feed. A model-based control approach for solving this problem is described. A lumped parameter model of the EBR-II primary pool is developed and validated using experimental data. A disturbance rejection method is then used to design a controller that minimizes the effect of those disturbances that cause poor setpoint tracking. The implementation of the controller and results are given in a companion paper.