A novel optimization method, Effective Discrete Firefly Algorithm, for fuel reload design of nuclear reactors

Highlights: • An advanced version of firefly algorithm, EDFA, is proposed for the core pattern optimization problem. • The movement of each firefly toward the best firefly with a dynamic probability is the major improvement of EDFA. • LPO results represent the faster convergence and better performance of EDFA in comparison to CFA and DFA. - Abstract: Inspired by fireflies behavior in nature, a firefly algorithm has been developed for solving optimization problems. In this approach, each firefly movement is based on absorption of the other one. For enhancing the performance of firefly algorithm in the optimization process of nuclear reactor loading pattern optimization (LPO), we introduce a new variant of firefly algorithm, i.e. Effective Discrete Firefly Algorithm (EDFA). In EDFA, a new behavior is the movement of fireflies to current global best position with a dynamic probability, i.e. the movement of each firefly can be determined to be toward the brighter or brightest firefly's position in any iteration of the algorithm. In this paper, our optimization objectives for the LPO are the maximization of K_eff along with the minimization of the power peaking factor (PPF). In order to represent the increase of convergence speed of EDFA, basic firefly algorithms including the continuous firefly algorithm (CFA) and the discrete firefly algorithm (DFA) also have been implemented. Loading pattern optimization results of two well-known problems confirm better performance of EDFA in obtaining nearly optimized fuel arrangements in comparison to CFA and DFA. All in all, we can suggest applying the EDFA to other optimization problems of nuclear engineering field in order to investigate its performance in gaining considered objectives