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This research aims to enhance control strategies for pressurized water reactors, focusing on load-following and safety constraints.

April 4, 2026Next EnergyOpen Access

Modeling and control of a nuclear pressurized water reactor using advanced model predictive control strategies

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Modeling evaluates advanced control strategies in nuclear reactors, suggesting improved performance and feasibility for real-time applications.

This research aims to enhance control strategies for pressurized water reactors, focusing on load-following and safety constraints.
Developed a detailed 27-state model of a pressurized water reactor system in MATLAB/Simulink.
Implemented and compared four control strategies: PI, linear MPC, gain-scheduled MPC, and nonlinear MPC.
Evaluated controllers under power ramping and feed-water disturbance scenarios to assess performance.
Documented design workflow, tuning parameters, and computational constraints.
MPC-based strategies significantly reduced power-tracking time absolute error and settling time compared to PI control.
GSMPC achieved NMPC-like performance at a lower computational cost across a wide operating range.
Closed-loop performance evaluated using standard integral error indices showed clear advantages for advanced control methods.

Rahim et al. (2026) studied this question.

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Modeling evaluates advanced control strategies in nuclear reactors, suggesting improved performance and feasibility for real-time applications.