Safety passive system in designing reduced scale of a PWR by genetic algorithm

This paper presents the concept 'Designing by Genetic Algorithms (DbyGA)' applied on a new reduced scale system problem. The designing problem of a passive safety thermal-hydraulic system, considering dimensional and operational constraints, has been solved. Take account the passive safety characteristics of the last nuclear reactor generation, a PWR core under natural circulation is used in order to demonstrate the methodology applicability. The results revealed that some solutions (reduced scale system DbyGA) are capable of reproducing, both accurately and simultaneously, many of the physical phenomena that occur in real scale and operating conditions. However the results showed, in the non-trivial flow patterns simulation case study, some deficiencies in the DbyGA approach. These aspects revel important methodological possibilities to DbyGA performance improvement. (author)