Power probability density function control and performance assessment of a nuclear research reactor

•In this paper, the performance assessment of static PDF control system is discussed.•The reactor PDF model is set up based on the B-spline functions.•Acquaints of Nu, and Th-h. equations solve concurrently by reformed Hansen’s method.•A principle of performance assessment is put forward for the PDF of the NR control.

One of the main issues in controlling a system is to keep track of the conditions of the system function. The performance condition of the system should be inspected continuously, to keep the system in reliable working condition. In this study, the nuclear reactor is considered as a complicated system and a principle of performance assessment is used for analyzing the performance of the power probability density function (PDF) of the nuclear research reactor control.First, the model of the power PDF is set up, then the controller is designed to make the power PDF for tracing the given shape, that make the reactor to be a closed-loop system. The operating data of the closed-loop reactor are used to assess the control performance with the performance assessment criteria. The modeling, controller design and the performance assessment of the power PDF are all applied to the control of Tehran Research Reactor (TRR) power in a nuclear process. In this paper, the performance assessment of the static PDF control system is discussed, the efficacy and efficiency of the proposed method are investigated, and finally its reliability is proven.