Interval approach for stability analysis of a Pressurized Water Reactor with parametric uncertainty using LMI based H-infinity controller

The self-regulating and self-stabilizing natures of a Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) make it most suitable for the nuclear power industry. However, handling the disturbance and stabilizing a PWR with the disturbance are highly challenging tasks for control engineers due to inherent nonlinearity in a reactor. It leads to a change in the behaviour with variation in reactor power. Further, plenty of uncertainties exist in a PWR due to the heat transfer from fuel to coolant and the reactivity changes due to variation in fuel and coolant temperatures. Thus, it is essential to design a robust controller which can stabilize the system in the presence of uncertainties and disturbances as well. In this paper, a state-space model has been considered using the point kinetics equations of PWR coupled with Mann’s thermal-hydraulic equations. The system matrices have been evaluated at different power levels with uncertainty in parameters to produce an interval state-space model. An H-infinity based Full State Feedback Controller (SFSC) has been designed for this interval plant and then used for establishing a stability criterion in the presence of disturbances. The outcomes have been validated using MATLAB simulations and discreetly exemplified in the result section.