Optimal Control of a Boiling Water Reactor Load-Following Operation

A method based on a forward dynamic programming technique is applied to load-following control of a boiling water reactor. The control strategy obtained is optimal and satisfies operation constraints. A coarse-mesh, one-dimensional model using the two-group diffusion theory with Doppler, void, and xenon feedbacks is developed to reduce computer time. The control rods are assumed to be fixed during load maneuvers, and variations in core power are accomplished through core flow. An off-line daily load-following analysis needs ∼2000 CPU s on a PRIME 9950 computer. With some relaxation, computation time can be reduced to several hundred seconds. Thus, an on-line calculation that leads to an approximate closed-loop control is feasible.