Farrokh Khoshahval; Mohammad Rajaee; Nafiseh Tehrani
Abstract
Actinide concentration and activity analysis of the nuclides resulted from the burnup (depletion) process during nuclear reactor operation lifetime is an essential problem in reactor design. Inventory and the corresponding activities of the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR) are evaluated using different ...
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Actinide concentration and activity analysis of the nuclides resulted from the burnup (depletion) process during nuclear reactor operation lifetime is an essential problem in reactor design. Inventory and the corresponding activities of the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR) are evaluated using different methods and compared with each other. WIMS-CITATION, ORIGEN, and MCNP codes are used for plate type inventory calculations. The important actinides, fission products, and fissile inventory ratio of TRR have been calculated at different burnup steps. It is worth noting to mention that knowing the value of inventory helps us for safe handling of the spent fuels and to have a perfect design for transport cask of spent fuels. In this paper, the fuel isotope inventories were calculated for the first and 83rd core configuration of the Tehran Research Reactor, which is named “Core01” and “Core83” respectively. The calculations were first performed using WIMS-D5 and CITATION neutronic codes and then the results are compared with that of ORIGEN and MCNPX code. The total radioactivity of the TRR core at the end of the reactor core life (Core83) is estimated to be 6.47×105 Ci.
Farrokh Khoshahval
Abstract
Selecting a genuine objective function in the fuel management optimization (FMO) of newly developed reactors is fundamentally important. The FMO problem becomes harder when a multi-objective fitness (cost) function (MOCF) is in use. Usually, when undertaking a MOCF fuel management optimization problem, ...
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Selecting a genuine objective function in the fuel management optimization (FMO) of newly developed reactors is fundamentally important. The FMO problem becomes harder when a multi-objective fitness (cost) function (MOCF) is in use. Usually, when undertaking a MOCF fuel management optimization problem, it is transformed into the summation of objective functions, which are related to weighting factors. Different parameters can be chosen as the main fitness function in an optimization problem. In the case of a nuclear reactor, the cycle length, the multiplication factor and power peaking factor are the most significant. The value of the weighting factors and/or the method with which the cost function has been formulated may affect the final result of optimization. In this paper, the effect of the selection of the cost function has been analyzed in order to reach an optimum in core fuel management of a typical pressurized water reactor, PWR. It is understood from the results that finding a loading pattern that results in a better power peaking factor (lower PPF) is stricter than that of a longer cycle length. Indeed, the obtained loading pattern strongly depends on the selected fitness function. Finally, the flattening function is proposed instead of minimizing the PPF to attain better loading patterns.
