Published 2007 | Version v1
Miscellaneous Metadata-only

Study of heuristics in ant system for nuclear reload optimisation

Creators

  • 1. Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), RJ (Brazil). Coordenacao dos Programas de Pos-graduacao de Engenharia (COPPE). Programa de Engenharia Nuclear

Description

A Pressurized Water Reactor core must be reloaded every time the fuel burnup reaches a level when it is not possible to sustain nominal power operation. The nuclear core fuel reload optimization consists in finding a burned-up and fresh-fuel-assembly loading pattern that maximizes the number of effective full power days, minimizing the relationship cost/benefit. This problem is NP-hard, meaning that complexity grows exponentially with the number of fuel assemblies in the core. Besides that, the problem is non-linear and its search space is highly discontinual and multimodal. In this work a parallel computational system based on Ant Colony System (ACS) called Artificial-Ant-Colony Networks is used to solve the nuclear reactor core fuel reload optimization problem, with compatibles heuristics. ACS is a system based on artificial agents that uses the reinforcement learning technique and was originally developed to solve the Traveling Salesman Problem, which is conceptually similar to the nuclear fuel reload problem. (author)

Part of:
Proceedings of the INAC 2007 International nuclear atlantic conference. Nuclear energy and energetic challenges for 21st. century. 15. Brazilian national meeting on reactor physics and thermal hydraulics; 8. Brazilian national meeting on nuclear applications

Additional details

Publishing Information

ISBN
978-85-99141-02-1
Imprint Title
Proceedings of the INAC 2007 International nuclear atlantic conference. Nuclear energy and energetic challenges for 21st. century. 15. Brazilian national meeting on reactor physics and thermal hydraulics; 8. Brazilian national meeting on nuclear applications
Imprint Pagination
[vp.]
Journal Page Range
[6 p.]

Conference

Title
INAC 2007 International nuclear atlantic conference. Nuclear energy and energetic challenges for 21st. century. 15. Brazilian national meeting on reactor physics and thermal hydraulics; 8. Brazilian national meeting on nuclear applications
Dates
30 Sep - 5 Oct 2007
Place
Santos (Brazil)

INIS

Country of Publication
Brazil
Country of Input or Organization
Brazil
INIS RN
39107798
Subject category
S21: SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS;
Resource subtype / Literary indicator
Conference, Non-conventional Literature
Descriptors DEI
ALGORITHMS; ANGRA-1 REACTOR; ANTS; COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS; FUEL MANAGEMENT; MATHEMATICAL SOLUTIONS; OPTIMIZATION; REACTOR CORES; REACTOR FUELING; REACTOR OPERATION
Descriptors DEC
ANIMALS; ARTHROPODS; ENRICHED URANIUM REACTORS; EVALUATION; HYMENOPTERA; INSECTS; INVERTEBRATES; MANAGEMENT; MATHEMATICAL LOGIC; NUCLEAR MATERIALS MANAGEMENT; OPERATION; POWER REACTORS; PWR TYPE REACTORS; REACTOR COMPONENTS; REACTORS; THERMAL REACTORS; WATER COOLED REACTORS; WATER MODERATED REACTORS

Optional Information

Notes
9 refs., 1 fig., 1 tab. Code: R17_1012.pdf