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In transition: Commercializing fusion power
Commercial fusion power is closer than ever. There are now around 30 U.S. fusion companies, several of which claim to be on track to connect to the grid as early as the 2030s.
Tokamak and laser inertial confinement approaches benefit from decades of research at facilities such as the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and ITER, with alternative concepts including stellarator, magnetic mirror, and Z-pinch confinement also making notable progress as private and government funding for fusion increases.
A. A. El-Bassioni, C. G. Poncelet
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 54 | Number 2 | June 1974 | Pages 166-176
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE74-A23404
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The theoretical minimal time modal control strategy to suppress xenon oscillations in nuclear reactors was found to be of the Bang-Bang type. Such control policy implies instantaneous variation of the control poison between two extreme values. The switching action depends on exact knowledge of the location of the reactor state in the phase plane. The state is related to the measured axial offset, and the concept of axial offset phase plane is introduced. The main features of this phase plane can be constructed using a semi-operational method. Using the Carnegie-Mellon University xenon spatial control simulator, optimal and off-optimal control policies were tested and the capability to suppress the oscillation was demonstrated. Some of the attractive features of this suggested method are the simplicity of control policies, use of reactor output data, and the ability to initiate the control action once the oscillation is detected and to predict beforehand the outcome of the control decision, thus increasing the operator capacity to modify his decision.