State Feedback Control of Pressurizer Pressure with PSO-Optimized Dominant Pole

Abstract Pressurizer is an important equipment in pressurized water reactor nuclear power plant. Its function is to ensure that the pressure and water level in the primary circuit are kept at their setpoints to maintain the safety and economy of operation. The pressurizer is a complex system with time delay, disturbances and nonlinearity. The traditional PID is difficult to effectively use the measurable information and cannot deal with constraints. This study presents a state feedback control strategy for regulating pressurizer pressure, utilizing the dominant pole placement approach. The dominant pole optimization is performed through particle swarm optimization (PSO), addressing the limitation of conventional state feedback control that depends on state observers in high-order systems. By relocating the system poles and modifying the system matrix, the closed-loop dynamics are enhanced to meet desired performance criteria. Through the simulation of typical working conditions, the control performance of the designed control system is tested and compared with the traditional PID. The designed control system has smaller overshoot and settling time, and performs better robustness. Experimental results demonstrate that the newly developed control method significantly enhances trajectory tracking and disturbance suppression, while also increasing the safety margin of reactor operation.