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Breaking ground on a new approach to construction
The drive to Kairos Power’s reactor demonstration site in Oak Ridge, Tenn., is not only scenic—it’s historic. Nearly 85 years ago, roughly 30,000 construction workers transformed orchards and farmland into a key Manhattan Project site. Depending on your route, you may pass by one of the three gatehouses that were once military checkpoints controlling access to Atomic Energy Commission production facilities.
Humberto E. Garcia, Richard B. Vilim, Eric M. Dean
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 125 | Number 3 | March 1997 | Pages 337-347
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE97-A24279
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The implementation of a computer-based controller for regulating reactor inlet temperature (RIT) in a pool-type power plant is described. The mathematical description of the controller is given in a companion paper. The elements of the control system are organized in a master-follower hierarchical architecture that takes advantage of existing in-plant hardware and software to minimize the need for plant modifications. Low-level control algorithms are executed on existing local digital controllers (followers) with the high-level algorithms executed on a new plant supervisory computer (master). A distributed computing strategy provides integration of the existing and additional computer platforms. The control system operates by having the master controller first estimate the secondary sodium flow needed to achieve a given RIT. The estimated flow is then used as a setpoint by the follower controller to regulate sodium flow using a motor-generator pump set. The control system has been implemented in a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) setup and qualified for operation in the Experimental Breeder Reactor II at Argonne National Laboratory. The HIL results are provided.