A study of nuclear reactor models with nonlinear reactivity feedbacks: Stability criteria and power overshoot evaluation

A theoretical method of analysis of equations describing the dynamics of nuclear reactors with nonlinear reactivity feedbacks is presented. Criteria have been derived for conditional stability of a large class of reactor models, including the evaluation of regions of permissible initial perturbations. Also, relationships have been studied between the magnitude of perturbed trajectories and that of initial functions. Specifically, a method of the reactor power overshoot evaluation has been introduced and verified against experimental data.