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Division Spotlight
Human Factors, Instrumentation & Controls
Improving task performance, system reliability, system and personnel safety, efficiency, and effectiveness are the division's main objectives. Its major areas of interest include task design, procedures, training, instrument and control layout and placement, stress control, anthropometrics, psychological input, and motivation.
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 since 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. local time 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.”
Di Jiang, Zhe Dong, Xiaojin Huang (Tsinghua Univ)
Proceedings | Nuclear Plant Instrumentation, Control, and Human-Machine Interface Technolgies (NPIC&HMIT 2019) | Orlando, FL, February 9-14, 2019 | Pages 757-764
The modular high temperature gas-cooled reactor (MHTGR) based nuclear steam supplying system (NSSS) is constituted by an MHTGR, a once-through steam generator (OTSG) and produces superheated steam flow for electricity generation or process heat. Although the current PID control law can guarantee satisfactory closed-loop stability, which regulates the neutron flux, primary coolant temperature and live steam temperature by adjusting the control rod speed as well as primary and secondary flowrates. However, the thermal power of NSSS needs to be further optimized. Motivated by this, a dynamic matrix control (DMC) is presented to optimize thermal power of the MHTGR based NSSS. A step-response model with the thermal power response data is utilized in designing the DMC. The design objective of DMC is to optimize the deviation of the thermal power from its reference under its rate constraint. Then, the DMC is applied to the thermal power control, whose implementation is given by forming a cascade control loop with the PID in the inner loop for stabilization and with DMC in the outer loop for optimization. Numerical simulation results show the satisfactory improvement of thermal power response. This cascade control structure inherits the advantages of both PID and DMC, by which the zeros offset and the short settling time of thermal power are realized.