A class-based search for the in-core fuel management optimization of a pressurized water reactor

The In-Core Fuel Management Optimization (ICFMO) is a prominent problem in nuclear engineering, with high complexity and studied for more than 40 years. Besides manual optimization and knowledge-based methods, optimization metaheuristics such as Genetic Algorithms, Ant Colony Optimization and Particle Swarm Optimization have yielded outstanding results for the ICFMO. In the present article, the Class-Based Search (CBS) is presented for application to the ICFMO. It is a novel metaheuristic approach that performs the search based on the main nuclear characteristics of the fuel assemblies, such as reactivity. The CBS is then compared to the one of the state-of-art algorithms applied to the ICFMO, the Particle Swarm Optimization. Experiments were performed for the optimization of Angra 1 Nuclear Power Plant, located at the Southeast of Brazil. The CBS presented noticeable performance, providing Loading Patterns that yield a higher average of Effective Full Power Days in the simulation of Angra 1 NPP operation, according to our methodology.