Extended Kalman filter design to estimate the poisons concentrations in the P.W.R nuclear reactors based on the reactor power measurement

Abstract

An important problem in nuclear power plants is reactor power control. Considering the importance of the neutron absorber poisons such as xenon and samarium in design of the nuclear reactor control system and regarding the limitations of the xenon and samarium concentrations measurement, in this paper, an Extended Kalman Filter (E.K.F) is presented to estimate the xenon & samarium concentrations. Besides, Precursors produce delayed neutrons which are most important in specification of reactor period and control of nuclear reactor, but precursors densities cannot be measured directly and the designed Extended Kalman Filter can estimate delayed neutrons precursors densities. The reactor core is simulated based on the point kinetics equations and three delayed neutron groups. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed observer in terms of performance, robustness and stability and show that the Extended Kalman Filter (E.K.F) follows the actual system variables accurately and is satisfactory in the presence of the parameters uncertainties and disturbances. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd