Interval approach for stability analysis of a pressurized water reactor with parametric uncertainty using LMI based H-infinity controller

The self-regulating and self-stabilizing natures of a Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) make it most suitable for the nuclear power industry. However, handling the disturbance and stabilizing a PWR with the disturbance are highly challenging tasks for control engineers due to inherent nonlinearity in a reactor. It leads to change in the behavior with variation in reactor power. Further, plenty of uncertainties exist in a PWR due to the heat transfer from fuel to coolant and the reactivity changes due to component faults and variation in fuel and coolant temperatures. Thus, it is essential to design a robust controller which can stabilize the system in presence of uncertainties and disturbances as well. In this paper, a state space model has been considered using the point kinetics equations of PWR coupled with the Mann's thermal-hydraulic equations. The system matrices have been evaluated at different power levels with uncertainty in parameters to produce an interval state space model. A H ∞ based Full State Feedback Controller (SFSC) has been designed for this interval plant and then used for establishing a stability criterion in presence of disturbances. The outcomes have been validated using MATLAB simulations and discreetly exemplified in the result section.