Hi! I’m glad you are enjoying the project. You seem to have gotten the hang of the basic principles. The key is to raise thermal power slowly to around 600 MWt. This is done by withdrawing the rods while keeping margin above 35 %. Keep an eye on cooling and don’t let temperature rise above 700 degrees without sufficient cooling. Also, keep monitoring the reactor period and don’t let it climb too high. Reactivity between 2-8 is optimal for building thermal power.
Steam should be rising as you build thermal power. When it reaches around 60 % you should start putting lid on your turbine. This is all about balance not to overload the turbine and start losing steam pressure and keeping eye on your reactivity and temperature not to overheat the reactor or keeping the core too unstable.
The reactor is happy at around 600-800 MWt with output of around 200-350 MWe. I am planning to add a “valve screen” to control the steam pressure and cooling more in depth to prevent steam pressure rising without a pressure release system when the grid demand drops.
Hope this helps!
