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Going Nuclear: Notes from the officially unofficial book tour
I work in the analytical labs at one of Europe’s oldest and largest nuclear sites: Sellafield, in northwestern England. I spend my days at the fume hood front, pipette in one hand and radiation probe in the other (and dosimeter pinned to my chest, of course). Outside the lab, I have a second job: I moonlight as a writer and public speaker. My new popular science book—Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World—came out last summer, and it feels like my life has been running at full power ever since.
Gary M. Sandquist
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 37 | Number 3 | September 1969 | Pages 443-450
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE69-A19118
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A method for determining stabilizing control functions for any first-order controllable system is presented. Examples of stabilizing feedback control are examined and corroborated for stability using the second method of Liapunov. Consideration of a general class of arbitrary degree stabilizing feedback-control functions reveals that linear feedback control produces the greatest damping. Examination of signal error and time delay in the control function shows that highly damping control can result in system oscillation. Finally the method is extended to systems of higher order and a stabilizing control function is found for the reactor-kinetic equations even with unmonitored delayed neutrons if the linear feedback-control gain is > β/l.