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Securing the advanced reactor fleet
Physical protection accounts for a significant portion of a nuclear power plant’s operational costs. As the U.S. moves toward smaller and safer advanced reactors, similar protection strategies could prove cost prohibitive. For tomorrow’s small modular reactors and microreactors, security costs must remain appropriate to the size of the reactor for economical operation.
Laurian Dinca, Tunc Aldemir
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 127 | Number 2 | October 1997 | Pages 199-219
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE97-A28597
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A model-based parameter estimation method for nonlinear systems that does not require the linearization of the system equations and that can account for uncertainties in the monitored data as well as the parameters (e.g., random variations) is described. The method is particularly suitable for fault diagnosis because of its capability to assign probabilities of occurrence to user-specified parameter magnitude intervals that may be associated with system faults. The method regards system evolution in time as transitions between these intervals as well as user-specified magnitude intervals of the dynamic variables. These transition rates are obtained on-line from the system model and the monitored dynamic variable data and constitute a Markov chain in discrete time. The method then compares predicted and observed data at a given time step to narrow the estimated parameter range in the next time step. Implementations using a second-order van der Pol oscillator and a third-order system describing temporal xenon oscillations in a hypothetical reactor indicate that the method is computationally efficient and can be used for multiparameter estimation with incomplete information on the system state.