Regulating reactor neutron field using inverse models

Conclusions

Further development of the existing concept of automatic regulation for RBMK-type reactors involves the isolation and stabilization of the unstable first azimuthal harmonic of the neutron-field. The given regulation algorithm, based on the inverse model, assumed independent (autonomous) regulation of N unstable harmonics in the general case. This allows the requirement that calculations on energy-distribution optimization be operational to be considerably reduced, and permits equipment subsystem separation, which increases the reliability of the system as a whole.

The essence of the algorithm is that what is regulated is not the neutron-field deviation from a steady profile at the control points but the amplitude of the corresponding harmonic calculated using the inverse model. The controlling action for each rod is calculated from the signals from all the detectors, which also increases the reliability and accuracy of regulation.

The characteristic features of several practical structures of direct-regulation systems for the first neutron-field harmonics have been considered. Numerous computation experiments on models have shown that the proposed algorithms are effective. The present method is one of the possible means of neutron-field stabilization.