Sensitivity theory for the equilibrium burnup cycle

The design and analysis of advanced reactor concepts are based on the performance of the equilibrium cycle (sometimes also referred to as they cyclic mode of the reactor), rather than some arbitrary sequence of start-up cycles. While sensitivity theory has been developed for a sequence of nonequilibrium (or initial value) depletion problems, the equilibrium problem has not been previously considered. The work reported in this paper extends depletion perturbation theory (DPT) to the two-point boundary value problem describing the equilibrium burnup cycle