Robust nonlinear control for nuclear reactors using sliding mode observer to estimate the xenon concentration

This paper presents findings on the sliding mode controller for a nuclear reactor. One of the important operations in nuclear power plants is load following. In this paper, a sliding mode control system, which is a robust nonlinear controller, is designed to control the pressurized-water reactor power. The reactor core is simulated based on the point kinetics equations and six delayed neutron groups. Considering neutron absorber poisons and regarding the limitations of the xenon concentration measurement, a sliding mode observer is designed to estimate its value, and finally, a sliding mode control based on the sliding mode observer is presented to control the core power of reactor. The stability analysis is given by means Lyapunov approach; thus, the control system is guaranteed to be stable within a large range. The employed method is easy to implement in practical applications, and moreover, the sliding mode control exhibits the desired dynamic properties during the entire output-tracking process independent of perturbations. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed observer-based controller in terms of performance, robustness and stability. (authors)