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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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Deep Space: The new frontier of radiation controls
In commercial nuclear power, there has always been a deliberate tension between the regulator and the utility owner. The regulator fundamentally exists to protect the worker, and the utility, to make a profit. It is a win-win balance.
From the U.S. nuclear industry has emerged a brilliantly successful occupational nuclear safety record—largely the result of an ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable) process that has driven exposure rates down to what only a decade ago would have been considered unthinkable. In the U.S. nuclear industry, the system has accomplished an excellent, nearly seamless process that succeeds to the benefit of both employee and utility owner.
Sen-I Chang, T. W. Kerlin
Nuclear Technology | Volume 13 | Number 3 | March 1972 | Pages 241-249
Technical Paper | Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT72-A31078
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A systematic design procedure was developed to aid in the reduction of trial and error in the design of reactor control systems. The method developed here uses an automatic optimization to help the designer find the best controller structure and the best controller settings to use in a control system based on conventional controllers (derivative, proportional, or integral). The method was demonstrated in a control system design for a molten salt breeder reactor. The application of the method gave excellent results at only a modest expense in computer time (5 min on the IBM-360 Model 91). The method appears suitable for routine application in reactor control system design.
