Nuclear Reactor Refueling Optimization

Bell, D.E. & Shapiro, J.F. (1974). Nuclear Reactor Refueling Optimization. IIASA Working Paper. IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria: WP-74-032

Preview

Text WP-74-032.pdf Download (329kB) | Preview

Abstract

In a 1971 paper, Suzuki and Kiyose give a model for light water moderated atomic reactor refueling optimization. Specifically, they present a linear programming formulation for minimizing the number of fresh fuel assemblies required by a reactor over a finite planning horizon subject to power generation and safety requirements and reactor design specifications. The optimal refueling policies found by Suzuki and Kiyose were useful in reducing the fresh fuel required, but two difficulties were encountered. First, the optimal linear programming solutions included small fractional numbers of fresh fuel assemblies which were difficult to round off. The second difficulty was that their formulation had approximately 165H constraints where H is the length of the planning horizon. The problems solved had H=10, but it was desired to analyze the problem for longer planning horizons of 20 to 30 stages without solving prohibitively large mathematical programming problems.

In this paper, we give a reformulation of the reactor refueling optimization problem that consists of approximately 15H constraints and a large number of columns. This reformulation is required because the state-of-the-art of integer programming does not usually permit the solution of integer programs with thousands or even many hundreds of constraints. Moreover, the reformulation should permit the linear programming approximation to be more easily solved, at least approximately. Finally, the reformulation identifies and analyzes explicitly the fundamental activity in refueling optimization; namely, the introduction, degradation and removal of fuel assemblies. This should make it easier to modify the model to take into account additional features of the problem such as a cost for moving an assembly from one location to another.

Actions (login required)

View Item