Improved Double PI Control for Nuclear Steam Generator Water Level

Malfunction of steam generator water level control is the main cause of unexpected shutdowns in nuclear power plants. Particularly at low powers, it is a difficult task due to shrink and swell phenomena. In order to avoid the affect caused by spurious water level, a special discriminator was designed. Parameters of the controller with a simplified steam generator model were tuned offline by the genetic algorithm. Control effect with a discriminator was contrasted to that without a discriminator. The results show that the discriminator shortens control period and reduced overshoot.