Design and simulation of the automatic high temperature gas-cooled reactor fuel handling using programmable logic controller

Abstract

One of the vital components for the pebble reactor is the fuel handling system which was employed to load, recirculate and discharge the depleted fuel during the operation of reactor. The previous fuel handling design and experience of the High Temperature Reaktor 10 MWth (HTR-10) and HTR-PM were beneficial for the development of High Temperature Gas-cooled Reaktor (HTGR) in Indonesia such as for the Reaktor Daya Eksperiment (RDE) 10 MWth and PELUIT 150 MWth. One of the focus for the development especially for the control is an important factor to ensure that the reliability and the safety during operation were guarantee. Therefore, aims of this paper is to understand and develop the automatic control system of the fuel handling. The development was done by applying the logic flowchart of the fuel handling HTGR with the HTR-10 as the reference. Some modification was made considering the future application in Indonesia It was demonstrated that the automation systems with Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) can control handling systems easily because each valve can be drive to open and close immediately as requested from the sensor. It was also demostrated that the timing chart monitoring confirms the control of flowchart process description for the new fresh fuel loading.One of the vital components for the pebble reactor is the fuel handling system which was employed to load, recirculate and discharge the depleted fuel during the operation of reactor. The previous fuel handling design and experience of the High Temperature Reaktor 10 MWth (HTR-10) and HTR-PM were beneficial for the development of High Temperature Gas-cooled Reaktor (HTGR) in Indonesia such as for the Reaktor Daya Eksperiment (RDE) 10 MWth and PELUIT 150 MWth. One of the focus for the development especially for the control is an important factor to ensure that the reliability and the safety during operation were guarantee. Therefore, aims of this paper is to understand and develop the automatic control system of the fuel handling. The development was done by applying the logic flowchart of the fuel handling HTGR with the HTR-10 as the reference. Some modification was made considering the future application in Indonesia It was demonstrated that the automation systems with Programmable Logic Controller (PLC)...