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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Powering the future: How the DOE is fueling nuclear fuel cycle research and development
As global interest in nuclear energy surges, the United States must remain at the forefront of research and development to ensure national energy security, advance nuclear technologies, and promote international cooperation on safety and nonproliferation. A crucial step in achieving this is analyzing how funding and resources are allocated to better understand how to direct future research and development. The Department of Energy has spearheaded this effort by funding hundreds of research projects across the country through the Nuclear Energy University Program (NEUP). This initiative has empowered dozens of universities to collaborate toward a nuclear-friendly future.
John A. Bernard, David D. Lanning
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 110 | Number 4 | April 1992 | Pages 425-444
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE92-A23916
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Factors relevant to the design and implementation of digital controllers for research reactors are discussed with emphasis on the rationale for incorporating a system model in the control law. For this purpose, proportional-integral-derivative and period-generated control are compared. The latter is a model-based technique that achieves excellent trajectory tracking of nonlinear systems. It does this by combining feedback and feedforward control action in a manner that cancels the effects of the system’s dynamics on the controller’s performance. Model-based control is also superior in that it permits replication of some of the functions that humans perform when exercising control. In particular, models can be used to predict expected plant response and thereby facilitate diagnosis. The importance of validated signals, supervisory algorithms, properly designed man-machine interfaces, and automated diagnostics are discussed in relation to control law implementation. In addition, a summary is provided of reactor dynamics as related to control, and arguments are presented in support of using the rate of change of reactivity as the actuator signal. Experimental results obtained from trials of digital controllers on both the 5-MW(thermal) Massachusetts Institute of Technology Research Reactor and the Annular Core Research Reactor that is operated by Sandia National Laboratories are included.