TY - JOUR
T1 - Autonomous reactor control using model based predictive control for space propulsion applications
AU - Bragg-Sitton, Shannon M.
AU - Holloway, James Paul
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported in part by the Propulsion Research Center at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, as a part of the Graduate Student Researchers Fellowship Program. The second author (J.P.H.) was supported in part by DOE Grant DE-FG07-02SF22612. The work was completed as a component of Ph.D. research at the University of Michigan. The primary author is currently employed as a Technical Staff Member at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, on assignment at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, ER24/Nuclear Systems Branch, Huntsville, AL 35812.
PY - 2006/11
Y1 - 2006/11
N2 - Reliable reactor control is important to reactor safety, both in terrestrial and space systems. For a space system, where the time for communication to Earth is significant, autonomous control is imperative. Based on feedback from reactor diagnostics, a controller must be able to automatically adjust to changes in reactor temperature and power level to maintain nominal operation without user intervention. Model-based predictive control (MBPC) is investigated as a potential control methodology for reactor start-up and transient operation in the presence of either a constant or a time varying external source. Bragg-Sitton and Holloway [Bragg-Sitton, S.M., Holloway, J.P., 2004. Reactor start-up and control methodologies. In: El-Genk, M. (Ed.), Proceedings of the Space Technology and Applications International Forum (STAIF-2004), AIP Conference Proceedings 699, pp. 614-622.] assessed the applicability of MBPC to reactor start-up from a cold, zero-power condition in the presence of a time-varying external radiation source, where large fluctuations in the external radiation source can significantly impact a reactor during start-up operations. Here the MBPC algorithm is applied using the point kinetics model to describe the reactor dynamics, with a single group of delayed neutrons and a fast neutron lifetime of 10-7 s. Controller stability is assessed by carefully considering the dependencies of each component in the defined cost (objective) function and its subsequent effect on the selected "optimal" control maneuvers. Additional analysis demonstrates the effectiveness of the controller when a lower fidelity reactor kinetics model is adopted for the model system versus using a full six-group delayed neutron representation in the point kinetics equations to represent the "real" system operation.
AB - Reliable reactor control is important to reactor safety, both in terrestrial and space systems. For a space system, where the time for communication to Earth is significant, autonomous control is imperative. Based on feedback from reactor diagnostics, a controller must be able to automatically adjust to changes in reactor temperature and power level to maintain nominal operation without user intervention. Model-based predictive control (MBPC) is investigated as a potential control methodology for reactor start-up and transient operation in the presence of either a constant or a time varying external source. Bragg-Sitton and Holloway [Bragg-Sitton, S.M., Holloway, J.P., 2004. Reactor start-up and control methodologies. In: El-Genk, M. (Ed.), Proceedings of the Space Technology and Applications International Forum (STAIF-2004), AIP Conference Proceedings 699, pp. 614-622.] assessed the applicability of MBPC to reactor start-up from a cold, zero-power condition in the presence of a time-varying external radiation source, where large fluctuations in the external radiation source can significantly impact a reactor during start-up operations. Here the MBPC algorithm is applied using the point kinetics model to describe the reactor dynamics, with a single group of delayed neutrons and a fast neutron lifetime of 10-7 s. Controller stability is assessed by carefully considering the dependencies of each component in the defined cost (objective) function and its subsequent effect on the selected "optimal" control maneuvers. Additional analysis demonstrates the effectiveness of the controller when a lower fidelity reactor kinetics model is adopted for the model system versus using a full six-group delayed neutron representation in the point kinetics equations to represent the "real" system operation.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=33846598478&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.anucene.2006.09.007
DO - 10.1016/j.anucene.2006.09.007
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:33846598478
SN - 0306-4549
VL - 33
SP - 1368
EP - 1378
JO - Annals of Nuclear Energy
JF - Annals of Nuclear Energy
IS - 17-18
ER -