Abstract
A new method has been developed to assign burnable poison loadings in the optimization of Pressurized Water Reactor core reload design. The method utilizes successive linear programming to determine the desired burnable poison loading. The optimum loading is selected after the evaluation of all candidate loadings close to the desired loading. The design method was implemented as a sub-program in the nodal core analysis code SIMULATE. The technique was applied to re-design Commonwealth Edison's Zion Unit-1 cycles 9 and 10. Significant improvements were achieved in cycle length, number of BP rods required, and power peaking. The present work completely automates the core reload design problem, significantly decreasing the time and effort required of the designer.
Date of this Version
6-1-1987