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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.
Shengzhi Liu, Naiyao Zhang, Zhenhua Cui
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 148 | Number 3 | November 2004 | Pages 429-444
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE04-A2469
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In this paper a systematic design method of fuzzy control systems is applied to the pressurized water reactor's (PWR) power control. The paper includes three parts. In the first part, a simplified time-varying linear model of the PWR power system is constructed, and its inner structure and time-varying characteristics are analyzed. That provides a solid basis for study and design of the nuclear reactor power control system. In the second part, a systematic design method of fuzzy control systems is introduced and applied to control the nuclear reactor power process. The design procedures and parameters are given in detail. This systematic design method has some notable advantages. The control of a global fuzzy model can be decomposed into controlling a set of linear submodels. Each submodel controller can be independently designed by using a linear quadratic regulator approach. This systematic design method gives a sufficient and necessary condition to guarantee the stability of fuzzy control systems; thus, better control performance can be obtained due to the accurate control gains. In the third part, the control performance of the nuclear reactor fuzzy control system is examined by simulation experiments, including nuclear reactor power shutdown, start-up, and adjustment operations. The satisfactory experiment results have shown that the systematic design method for fuzzy control systems is effective and feasible.