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Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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Schulz Electric™ Refurbishes Critical Circulating Water Pump Motor in Only Four Days
Schulz Electric™ was contacted by a nuclear power plant in the New England region that serves a community of over 2 million homes. After five years of service, a 1500 HP, 4 kV, 24-pole circulating water pump motor (measuring approximately 7’ wide, 8’ tall, and weighing several tons) needed refurbishing while the plant was still online. To add to their concern, the power plant is located close to the ocean. The aging motor was not only approaching the end of its serviceable life, but was highly susceptible to moisture intrusion and the salt-laden air, which can build up in air passages within the motor. These environmental conditions can lead to elevated operating temperatures and corrosion developing on the rotor, stator, and shaft components. These factors combined, placed the plant at an increased risk of downtime that could have potentially led to a significant loss of revenue if they were forced into a shutdown event.
Charles E. Kessel, Marc A. Firestone,, Robert W. Conn
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 17 | Number 3 | May 1990 | Pages 391-411
Technical Paper | Plasma Engineering | doi.org/10.13182/FST90-A29216
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The control of plasma position, shape, and current in a tokamak fusion reactor is examined using linear optimal control. These advanced tokamaks are characterized by non-up-down symmetric coils and structure, thick structure surrounding the plasma, eddy currents, shaped plasmas, superconducting coils, vertically unstable plasmas, and hybrid function coils providing ohmic heating, vertical field, radial field, and shaping field. Models of the electromagnetic environment in a tokamak are derived and used to construct control gains that are tested in nonlinear simulations with initial perturbations. The issues of applying linear optimal control to advanced tokamaks are addressed, including complex equilibrium control, choice of cost functional weights, the coil voltage limit, discrete control, and order reduction. Results indicate that linear optimal control is a feasible technique for controlling advanced tokamaks where the more common classical control, relying on the scalar/orthogonalized description, will be severely strained.