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Aerospace Nuclear Science & Technology
Organized to promote the advancement of knowledge in the use of nuclear science and technologies in the aerospace application. Specialized nuclear-based technologies and applications are needed to advance the state-of-the-art in aerospace design, engineering and operations to explore planetary bodies in our solar system and beyond, plus enhance the safety of air travel, especially high speed air travel. Areas of interest will include but are not limited to the creation of nuclear-based power and propulsion systems, multifunctional materials to protect humans and electronic components from atmospheric, space, and nuclear power system radiation, human factor strategies for the safety and reliable operation of nuclear power and propulsion plants by non-specialized personnel and more.
Meeting Spotlight
Utility Working Conference and Vendor Technology Expo (UWC 2024)
August 4–7, 2024
Marco Island, FL|JW Marriott Marco Island
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
Vogtle-3 shuts down for valve issue
One of the new Vogtle units in Georgia was shut down unexpectedly on Monday last week for a valve issue that has been investigated and repaired. According to multiple local news outlets, Georgia Power reported on July 17 that unit 3 was back in service.
Southern Company spokesperson Jacob Hawkins confirmed that Vogtle-3 went off line at 9:25 p.m. on July 8 “due to lowering water levels in the steam generators caused by a valve issue on one of the three main feedwater pumps.”
Peiwei Sun, Jin Jiang, Kai Wang
Nuclear Technology | Volume 185 | Number 3 | March 2014 | Pages 239-258
Technical Paper | Fission Reactors | doi.org/10.13182/NT12-130
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Canadian supercritical water-cooled reactor (SCWR) can be modeled as a multiple-input multiple-output system. It has a high power-to-flow ratio, strong cross coupling, and a high degree of nonlinearity in its dynamic characteristics. Because of the existence of strong cross coupling among system inputs and outputs, it is difficult for a traditional control system design methodology to produce a satisfactory control system. In this paper, the direct Nyquist array method is used first to decouple the system into a diagonally dominant form via a precompensator. After decoupling the system successfully, three single-input single-output dynamic compensators are synthesized in the frequency domain. By using the precompensator, the temperature variation because of disturbances at the reactor power and pressure is significantly reduced. The control system can effectively maintain the overall system stability and regulate the plant around a specified operating condition. To deal with the nonlinearities, a control strategy based on gain scheduling is adopted. Different sets of controllers are used for the plant at different load conditions. The proposed control strategies have been evaluated under various operating scenarios. The robustness of the controller with respect to operating condition changes is also investigated. It is shown that the decoupling control can effectively reduce the cross coupling inherent in the Canadian SCWR, and gain scheduling control can successfully achieve satisfactory performance for different operating conditions.