Computer Control of Power in a Nuclear Reactor

A signal validation methodology has been simultaneously applied to the on-line fault diagnosis of neutron flux detectors, primnary coolant flow and temperature sensors, and to the computer control of power in an operating nuclear reactor. A CRT display presents the validated data and sensor diagnostics. The feedback signal to the controller is a digitally processed, weighted average of several valid power sensor signals where the weights are not a priori fixed but dependent on the a posteriori probabilities of failure of individual sensors computed on the basis of past and current observations.