β Scribed by R. Vestergaard
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
The book starts with a short chapter commenting upon the purpose and the philosophy of control and operational safety work. Chapter 2 and 3, deal with what might be called technical reactor kinetics. The neutron density is described as a function of the reactivity together with the various phenomena affecting the reactivity such as Xenon and Samarium poisoning, reactor temperatures, fuel depletion etc. Chapter 4 deals with automatic reactor control. The reactor as a heat producing machine is described from a power control viewpoint and the properties of the temperature and the Xenon internal feedback loops are discussed. After a discussion of the general requirements for an automatic control system, the chapter ends with a detailed description of the external control-rod loop including its principle of operation, transient response and how these things are affected by reactivity temperature coefficients.
Chapter 5 treats control rod mechanisms in operational principle and practical detail. Chapter 6 represents an inventory of the problem: nuclear power plant control taking into consideration both the properties of the reactor and the heat exchangers. .After a general survey of the way in which the reactor temperature program effects the steam pressure and temperature there follows a detailed discussion of reactor and boiler temperature kinetics. The chapter ends with a general description of the control principle for various plant programs as f. ex. a constant steam pressure program and the necessary combination of feedback loops in order to effect that. Chapter 7 gives some details upon the special instrumentation necessary for neutron flux or density measurements in a reactor considering the requirements of working range, the influence of the ~-radiation and the temperature. Chapters 8; 9; 10 constitue another cross-section of the problems met with in reactor plant control. Here the operational situations of start-up, power operation and shutdown are discussed in some detail together with the operational safety aspects in each of these situations.
The book ends with a chapter about analogue computing technique applied to reactor control problems.
It is the opinion of the reviewer that this book is a valuable aid to practical reactor control work. Even though, as stated in the author's preface, the book mainly describes the properties of pressurized water reactors with solid fuel elements, the general principles apply to other types of thermal reactors also and in one way the type mentioned is the most difficult to control due to its comparatively small amount of inherent safety. All the way through the book, the reactor is regarded simply as a technical piece of equipment with certain properties when subject to regulation or loading. It is discussed in a clear way how this component can be fitted into a power producing plant and how the plant can be run safely in a technically reasonable way. It is a good point to stress that the entire plant is concerned when control problems are under discussion and not only the reactor. This is especially the case where operational safety is concerned. It would on the other hand have been an advantage to have other types of reactors presented to a greater extent. The control schemes for the plant depend to a large extent upon the type of reactor; and a chapter covering the properties st large of f. ex. boiling heterogenous and homogenous reactors would have been a nice complement to this otherwise very useful book. These critical remarks also apply to the possible uses of a reactor; the author considers steam production for electricity generation only.
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