  Phase shaping using fractional order (FO) phase shapers has been proposed by
many contemporary researchers as a means of producing systems with iso-damped
closed loop response due to a stepped variation in input. Such systems, with
the closed loop damping remaining invariant to gain changes can be used to
produce dead-beat step response with only rise time varying with gain. This
technique is used to achieve an active step-back in a Pressurized Heavy Water
Reactor (PHWR) where it is desired to change the reactor power to a
pre-determined value within a short interval keeping the power undershoot as
low as possible. This paper puts forward an approach as an alternative for the
present day practice of a passive step-back mechanism where the control rods
are allowed to drop during a step-back action by gravity, with release of
electromagnetic clutches. The reactor under a step-back condition is identified
as a system using practical test data and a suitable Proportional plus Integral
plus Derivative (PID) controller is designed for it. Then the combined plant is
augmented with a phase shaper to achieve a dead-beat response in terms of power
drop. The fact that the identified static gain of the system depends on the
initial power level at which a step-back is initiated, makes this application
particularly suited for using a FO phase shaper. In this paper, a model of a
nuclear reactor is developed for a control rod drop scenario involving rapid
power reduction in a 500MWe Canadian Deuterium Uranium (CANDU) reactor using
AutoRegressive Exogenous (ARX) algorithm. The system identification and reduced
order modeling are developed from practical test data. For closed loop active
control of the identified reactor model, the fractional order phase shaper
along with a PID controller is shown to perform better than the present Reactor
Regulating System (RRS) due to its iso-damped nature.
