Nonlinear Control of pressurized water reactors with uncertainties estimation via high order sliding mode

In this work, dynamic controllers are designed for reactor power, pressurizer water level, and pressure control in the primary circuit of a pressurized water reactor. These nonlinear controllers use super-twisting sliding-mode estimators to enhance their robustness versus parameter variations and external disturbances. Hence, the perturbative terms can be canceled by the control, thus improving the dynamic behavior of the controlled system. The designed controllers ensure good performances and better transient behavior, also in the presence of uncertainties and disturbances. A performance study of the proposed controllers is carried out in the presence also of unmodeled dynamics. (C) 2020 The Franklin Institute. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.