Development and Assessment of a Nearly Autonomous Management and Control System for Advanced Reactors

TL;DR

This paper presents a Nearly Autonomous Management and Control (NAMAC) system for advanced reactors, integrating a three-layer architecture with a Digital Twin to assist operators during accident scenarios.

Contribution

It introduces a novel three-layer NAMAC architecture with multiple Digital Twins for advanced reactor management and demonstrates its effectiveness through a case study on safety recommendations.

Findings

NAMAC provides effective safety recommendations during simulated accidents.

The Digital Twin system successfully supports knowledge acquisition and operational decision-making.

NAMAC maintains reactor safety parameters within acceptable limits during the case study.

Abstract

This paper develops a Nearly Autonomous Management and Control (NAMAC) system for advanced reactors. The development process of NAMAC is characterized by a three layer-layer architecture: knowledge base, the Digital Twin (DT) developmental layer, and the NAMAC operational layer. The DT is described as a knowledge acquisition system from the knowledge base for intended uses in the NAMAC system. A set of DTs with different functions is developed with acceptable performance and assembled according to the NAMAC operational workflow to furnish recommendations to operators. To demonstrate the capability of the NAMAC system, a case study is designed, where a baseline NAMAC is implemented for operating a simulator of the Experimental Breeder Reactor II during a single loss of flow accident. When NAMAC is operated in the training domain, it can provide reasonable recommendations that prevent the peak fuel centerline temperature from exceeding a safety criterion.