Water level control for a nuclear steam generator

A water level control system for a nuclear steam generator (SG) is proposed. The control system consists of a feedback controller and a feedforward controller. The feedback controller is of first order, the feedforward controller is of second order, and parameters of the two controllers are directly related to the parameters of plant model thus scheduling is easy to implement in practice. Robustness and performance of the feedback and the feedforward controllers are analyzed in details and tuning of the two parameters of the controllers are discussed. Comparisons among a single robust controller, a multi-model controller and a gain-scheduled controller are studied. It is shown that the proposed gain-scheduled controller can achieve good performance at both low and high power levels.

Research highlights▶ A water level control system for a nuclear steam generator (SG) is proposed. ▶ The parameters of the control system are directly related to those of the plant model thus scheduling is easy to implement in practice. ▶ The proposed gain-scheduled controller can achieve good performance at both low and high power levels.