Modeling and Intelligent Controller Design for Reactor Regulating System of Advanced CANDU Reactor (ACR-700) in LabVIEW

In this research work, an Advanced CANDU Reactor of 700 MWe rating (ACR-700) is attempted for Reactor Regulating System (RRS) modeling and intelligent controller design. ACR-700 is a state-of-the-art advanced generation-III reactor. The reactor regulating system is modeled with special emphasis on internal and external reactivity devices. ACR-700 is designed with Liquid Zone Control (LZC) Model, Adjuster Banks Model, Absorber Banks Model and Shutdown Banks Model. The RRS model is a highly sophisticated model developed based on the principle of spatial nuclear reactor dynamics. The RRS model is a multivariable model. The spatial reactor dynamics is modeled based on five internal feedbacks and three feedbacks. The original controller design of RRS is comprised of a PID control algorithm. The control design is reattempted with an advanced intelligent algorithm in which the ANFIS controller is used as a modern control design tool. The new ANFIS controller is basically a multivariable controller. All the modeling of RRS is implemented in Visual Basic (VB) Software while the controller is configured in LabVIEW. A special toolkit is designed for the interfacing of Visual Basic and LabVIEW known as VBLAB. The optimization of intelligent controller parameters is carried out by Genetic Algorithm (GA). The GA-optimized intelligent controller is configured with the VB RRS model. All the variable trends are visualized in the VB environment. The proposed closed-loop ACR-700 RRS control system is tested for small perturbation Analysis and power ramp-down transient and found with excellent behavior well within the design limits. The performance of the suggested ACR-700 RRS controller is compared with the existing conventional controller. The performance of the suggested control scheme is marked with reduced oscillations and faster as compared to the existing control scheme.