Abstract
Poor control of the steam generator water level in the secondary circuit of a nuclear power plant can lead to frequent reactor shutdowns. Such shutdowns are caused by violation of safety limits on the water level and are common at low operating power where the plant exhibits strong nonminimum phase characteristics and flow measurements are unreliable. There is, therefore, a need to systematically investigate the problem of controlling the water level in the steam generator in order to prevent such costly reactor shutdowns. This paper presents a framework for addressing this problem based on an extension of the standard linear model predictive control algorithm to linear parameter varying systems.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 55-69 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| Journal | IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology |
| Volume | 8 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jan 2000 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Manuscript received September 25, 1997; revised December 23, 1998. Rec-I. INTRODUCTION ommended by Co-Editor, S. Engell. This work was supported in part by the UCLEAR fission reaction provides about 76% of the en-NDirectiondesEtudesetRecherches,ElectricitédeFrance,Paris.ergy required for electrical power generation in France1. sity,Bethlehem,PA18015USA(e-mail:mayuresh.kothare@lehigh.edu).M.V.KothareiswiththeDepartmentofChem.Engineering,LehighUniver- Economic feasibility of a nuclear power plant requires smooth B. Mettler and M. Morari are with the Institut für Automatik, Swiss Federal and uninterrupted plant operation in the face of varying elec-P.BendottiandC.-M.FalinowerarewiththeDirectiondesEtudesetdesInstituteofTechnology(ETH),8092Zürich,Switzerland. trical power demand. Unplanned shutdowns or reactor trips ini-