The optimum design of power distribution for pressurized water reactor

The aim of this work is to develop a two-level optimization method for designing the optimum initial fuel loading pattern and burnable poison placement in pressurized water reactors. At the lower level, based on the fuel loading pattern (LP) optimized by backward diffusion calculation theory, Pontryagin’s maximum principle is employed to investigate the optimum arrangement of burnable poison (BP) that can generate the lowest radial power peaking factor (PPF). At the upper level a multi-objective problem (MOP), with LP and BP as two objective functions, is proposed by coordinate the interrelationship of LP and BP, and optimized by non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II). The results of optimum designs called ‘Pareto optimum solutions’ are a set of multiple optimum solutions. After sensitivity analysis is performed, the final optimum solution which is chosen based on a typical VVER-1000 reactor reveals that the method could not only save the fuel consumption but also reduce the PPF in comparison to published data.

► A two-level optimization method is developed.
► LP is optimized by backward diffusion calculation theory.
► Pontryagin’s maximum principle is used to investigate the optimum BP arrangement.
► NSGA-II is applied to coordinate the interrelationship between LP and BP.
► The optimized core saves fuel while providing a large power.