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American Nuclear Society condemns attack on UAE's Barakah nuclear power plant
Washington, D.C. — The American Nuclear Society (ANS) issued the following statement:
"The American Nuclear Society condemns today's drone attack on the outer perimeter of the Barakah Nuclear Power Plant in the United Arab Emirates. The IAEA has confirmed that radiation levels are normal and no injuries have been reported. The safety systems performed as designed, a demonstration of the layered protections built into robust modern nuclear facilities. Incidents like this reinforce the importance of the IAEA's calls for maximum military restraint around nuclear power reactors, and of full adherence by all combatants to the IAEA's seven pillars for nuclear safety and security during armed conflict."
Jiuwu Hui
Nuclear Technology | Volume 211 | Number 8 | August 2025 | Pages 1699-1722
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2024.2426410
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Accurate estimation of unmeasured system states and disturbances in a pressurized water reactor (PWR) is essential for effective control, operation optimization, and safety monitoring. To this end, this paper investigates the estimation of unmeasured system states and disturbances of the PWR system during load-following operation. First, a mathematical model for the PWR system is established based on the two-point kinetics equations with one equivalent delayed neutron precursor group. Subsequently, an extended state observer (ESO) integration scheme, incorporating two coupled ESOs, is constructed to estimate unmeasured system states, including relative density of delayed neutron precursor, average fuel temperature, total reactivity, xenon concentration, and iodine concentration, along with time-varying disturbances, with the use of measurements of the PWR system only. According to the Lyapunov stability theorem, it is proved that the estimation error dynamic of the proposed ESO integration scheme is uniformly ultimately bounded stable. Finally, simulation results confirm that the proposed ESO integration scheme provides higher estimation accuracy and stronger robustness against measurement noises, model uncertainties, and external disturbances compared to both a high-gain observer and a high-order sliding mode observer.