Theory and Practice of Energy-directed Passive Fault-tolerant Control Systems for Safety-critical Applications

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What is the true cause of any accident? It is an 'uncontrolled' release of the stored energy. People slip and fall; it is an uncontrolled release of potential energy. Two cars collide; it is an uncontrolled release of kinetic energy. As technology advances, man-made systems store increasingly more energy, as we build bigger planes, larger nuclear reactors, and ultra-tall buildings. Any accident involved in these systems can often be traced back to an uncontrollable release of the stored energy. Over the years, different types of fault-tolerant control system concepts have been proposed to maintain the safety of such systems, but unfortunately, few have examined the heart of the problem, i.e. how to effectively re-direct the stored energy through safe ways so that integrity of the system boundaries are maintained. Many of the current fault-tolerant control systems rely on external energy sources to 'overpower' the stored energy to change its course. This not only increases the complexity of the design and implementation, but also makes the safety of the system more vulnerable to failures of the external energy sources. Ironically, we can ask: what is the cause of the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant? The answer is simply that there is too much 'energy' left in the reactor core due to decay heat, and we do not have sufficient external 'energy' to get the energy from the decay heat out quickly, due to earthquake ruined power grids and tsunami shattered on-site emergency diesel generators. A worthy question to ask is: Can we effectively use the energy in the core to keep itself cool through innovative design of safety control systems?