Optimal power profile fuel management

A method has been developed to determine a refueling pattern for light water reactors for the purpose of minimizing the radial power peaking ratio. The key points of this method are (1) the highest reactivity fuel assemblies are always placed into the peripheral region of the reactor, (2) the remainder of the assemblies are divided into two groups based on their neutronic characteristics, and are loaded into the reactor in a checkerboard pattern and (3) a loading priority sequence is generated for each group. To insure uniformity of the fuel distribution, linear programming is used for placement of the assemblies. The method is not limited by dimensional difficulties and is easily adaptable to an individual utility's current practices. Results show that this method is capable of consistently producing a satisfactory loading pattern under various refueling policies. (author)