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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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New coolants, new fuels: A new generation of university reactors
Here’s an easy way to make aging U.S. power reactors look relatively youthful: Compare them (average age: 43) with the nation’s university research reactors. The 25 operating today have been licensed for an average of about 58 years.
K. Asatani, M. Shiotani, Y. Hattori
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 62 | Number 1 | January 1977 | Pages 9-19
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE77-A26935
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A new method based on the singular perturbation theory is presented for synthesizing suboptimal control of nuclear reactors with spatially distributed parameters. The inverse of the neutron velocity is regarded as a small perturbing parameter, and the model, adopted for simplicity, is an infinite slab reactor described by the one-group diffusion equation. A control is found for the problem of transferring a given distributed neutron flux to the desired one assuming the deviation is small. It is shown that the Helmholtz mode is suited for the singular perturbation technique when one carries out the modal expansion, and the mode controllability is then determined in view of the asymptotic stability of solutions, which depends on the criticality condition. The theoretical estimation of the error of solution is also attached. A numerical example is given showing a large saving of computation time in the present method.