Design and Simulation of Microcontroller Based Power Electronic Converter for Nuclear Research Application

Extensive variations occur in a fuel of nuclear reactor due to normal and abnormal power and temperature transients. The study of profile of these transients are of great practical importance. In order to carry out various types of nuclear reactor safety related analytical studies, such transients need to be simulated in experimental facilities. To ascertain the nuclear reactor operations in healthy as well as in abnormal situations, fast response power electronic converters are utilized in experimental facilities to manage the power and temperature profiles in a systematic fashion. The results obtained during experimentation can be used to design the thermal hydraulic systems and generation of computer codes for further safety analysis. The paper highlights the microcontroller based power electronic converter deliberated for feeding output DC power to the fuel simulator under test matrix like variation in fraction of decay power, maximum center-line and clad surface temperature of nuclear reactor. A programmable step-less reference generator also has been designed and developed for simulating various power and temperature transients interfaced with reference circuit block of the converter to obtain the desired profile feeding the simulated fuel. Simulation tool has been utilized for the design of power electronic converter including control hardware. The design schematic of microcontroller circuit in Proteus design suite and 8051 microcontroller programming in KEIL platform is also presented.