Development of an automated system for fuel reload patterns design Original Research Article

In this paper an automated system to generate fuel reload patterns for a boiling water reactor (BWR), based on heuristic search methods using engineers expertise is presented. The main components of the system are the knowledge base, the inference engine, the 3D BWR simulator PRESTO-B and the user interface. The knowledge base includes a generation knowledge base and a modification knowledge base, which are concerned with the way human experts generate reload patterns. The system has been developed and applied to the Laguna Verde Nuclear Power Plant, achieving similar patterns to those used in the operation. No optimization algorithm has been incorporated in this system, therefore the generated reload patterns are the best estimate according the knowledge and experience of the nuclear engineers. Future works are being developed in this area using evolutionary optimization techniques as a complement of this system.