Experimental evaluation of reactivity constraints for the closed-loop control of reactor power

General principles for the closed-loop, digital control of reactor power have been identified, quantitatively enumerated, and experimentally demonstrated on the 5 MWt Research Reactor, MITR-II. The basic concept is to restrict the net reactivity so that it is always possible to make the reactor period infinite at the desired termination point of a transient by reversing the direction of motion of whatever control mechanism is associated with the controller. This capability is formally referred to as ''feasibility of control''. A series of ten experiments have been conducted over a period of eighteen months to demonstrate the efficacy of this property for the automatic control of reactor power. It has been shown that a controller which possesses this property is capable of both raising and lowering power in a safe, efficient manner while using a control rod of varying differential worth, that the reactivity constraints are a sufficient condition for the automatic control of reactor power, and that the use of a controller based on reactivity constraints can prevent overshoots either due to attempts to control a transient with a control rod of insufficient differential worth or due to failure to properly estimate when to commence rod insertion. Details of several of the more significant tests are presented together with a discussion of the rationale for the development of closed-loop control in large commercial power systems. Specific consideration is given to the motivation for designing a controller based on feasibility of control and the associated licensing issues