Compensated Feedwater Pump Control Analysis of Effect of Baseload Electricity Demand Reduction on Nuclear Steam Supply System

The effect of compensated feedwater (FW) pump control on a nuclear steam supply system with a significant reduction of baseload electricity demand as a common-cause failure could result in temperature elevation of the reactor coolant system and corresponding pressure increases in the pressurizer and steam generators above the set points. The shutting and opening of the pressure relief valve causes the fluid flow rate to transition from laminar to turbulence flow, where a sudden burst, chaotic movement, and inertial forces and weight of the fluid have the potential to cause a break in pipelines leading to a loss-of-coolant accident. This study employs the Fourier transform to simulate the impact of force as the power spectral density (in dBm/Hz) measured in 1 to 99 label harmonics over a specified time window using MATLAB/Simulink library tools. The experimental results show that compensated FW pump control could significantly reduce the effect of turbulence and reveal a perturbation settlement state prior to steady-state laminar flow.