Paper detail

Fractional Order Modeling of a PHWR Under Step-Back Condition and Control of Its Global Power with a Robust PIλDμ Controller

Bulk reduction of reactor power within a small finite time interval under abnormal conditions is referred to as step-back. In this paper, a 500MWe Canadian Deuterium Uranium (CANDU) type Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor (PHWR) is modeled using few variants of Least Square Estimator (LSE) from practical test data under a control rod drop scenario in order to design a control system to achieve a dead-beat response during a stepped reduction of its global power. A new fractional order (FO) model reduction technique is attempted which increases the parametric robustness of the control loop due to lesser modeling error and ensures iso-damped closed loop response with a PIλDμ or FOPID controller. Such a controller can, therefore, be used to achieve active step-back under varying load conditions for which the system dynamics change significantly. For closed loop active control of the reduced FO reactor models, the PIλDμ controller is shown to perform better than the classical integer order PID controllers and present operating Reactor Regulating System (RRS) due to its robustness against shift in system parameters.