A Control Strategy for Control Rods in High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactors
摘要
Each high-temperature gas-cooled reactor is equipped with 24 control rods, including 6 safety rods, 6 adjustment rods, and 12 compensating rods. When the nuclear power is in automatic control mode, the 6 adjustment rods automatically retract or insert according to the automatic rise and fall rod operation commands of the power control system, introducing corresponding positive and negative reactivity to achieve the increase or decrease of the reactor power. The current power control system calculates the deviation between the set power and the actual measured power, and after PID operation, it outputs the frequency command for the control rod stepper motor, controlling the speed of the stepper motor rotation, thereby changing the speed of the control rod movement and achieving the movement distance through time accumulation. The power control system uses PD control for PID operation, with a deadband of 240 Hz (the minimum rod movement speed determined by the local stepper motor). Under the current control method, after each rod movement, the power quickly returns to its original position due to the negative reactivity effect of temperature, resulting in insufficient rod movement distance and frequent rod movements. Moreover, when the power deviation is large, the rod movement speed is high, which can easily trigger high positive and negative power change rate protection, thus triggering a shutdown signal. This paper proposes a strategy for constant-speed automatic control of control rods, which includes four parts: the power control system PID, the automatic rod selection algorithm block, the adjustment rod drive algorithm block, and the adjustment rods and reactor. This strategy effectively solves the problem of insufficient rod movement distance and frequent rod movements, avoids the risk of unexpected shutdown due to rapid power changes in the reactor, and improves the availability and economic benefits of the unit.