An expert system for assessing the production and separation of plutonium produced in light water reactors

An expert system is presented for analysis of the products from a reactor-fuel reprocessing system given the incomplete data that may be available. The domain of the expert system consists of pressurized water reactors (PWRs), boiling water reactors (BWRs), and Purex reprocessing. Owing to international concerns and United States law, the products from a reactor-fuel reprocessing system given limited information on combinations of parameters are of interest. Models to perform the calculations necessary in the course of inferencing were developed and sized for use in the expert system. These include models to predict production and separation of the significant plutonium (Pu) and uranium (U) isotopes and fission products. Agreement between the isotopic production predicted by these models and those predicted by the ORIGEN2 code are very good. Differences in the prediction of Pu239 are less than 2.67% for all burnups. Differences in the amounts of U235, U236, and U238 are 0.03, 1.76, and 0.004%, respectively. Models to perform the stage-to-stage calculations necessary for the evaluation of a Purex plant are performed using models extracted from the widely accepted FORTRAN SEPHIS/MOD4 program