FORMOSA-B: A boiling water reactor in-core fuel management optimization package

The computational capability to determine optimal core loading patterns (LPs) for boiling water reactors (BWRs) given a reference control rod program has been developed. The design and fidelity of the reference BWR core simulator are presented. The placement of feed and reload fuel is solved by an adaptive optimization by simulated annealing (OSA) objective algorithm. Objective functions available for BWR fuel management are maximization of end-of-cycle core reactivity, minimization of peak linear power density, maximization of critical power ratio, maximization of region average discharge burnup, and minimization of total reload cost. Constraints include thermal and fuel exposure related limits and cycle energy production, when appropriate. The results presented demonstrate the utility of OSA to improve LPs in this highly nonlinear and constrained search space