Positive Void Coefficients
Ever since taking my control systems courses a total of five times among the two of them and then having the material finally click for me, I’ve been looking for analogous situations that happen in life. I am no stranger to mentioning my love of the HBO miniseries Chernobyl. It is a fantastic piece of art both visually and in its story telling.
One of the lines that’s repeated over and over again regarding the main reason for the Chernobyl disaster was an issue with the design of the RBMK reactor called the positive void coefficient. It occurred to me that there was another example of a Chernobyl like issue that I encountered today, albeit at a microscopic level in comparison.
I was parking downhill, and when I needed to leave, I had to back up a little bit in order to be able to pull out of the spot. Reversing while going uphill required accuracy but also traveling at slow speeds so that I wouldn’t bump into the car behind me. In a low speed, low power situation, it would be very easy to press down too hard on the gas causing the car to accelerate upwards too quickly. The new situation might be more difficult to control, with reverse steering and only one gear to work in.
While my reversing and Chernobyl are different in many ways (in almost all ways), the direction of feedback and forces are similar. I’m incredibly grateful to the struggle to understand those systems courses in university as it opened my eyes to so many new situations and a new way of looking at problems.
