Optimal Fuel Loading Pattern Design Using an Artificial Neural Network and a Fuzzy Rule-Based System

The Optimal Fuel Shuffling System (OFSS) was developed for the optimal design of pressurized water reactor (PWR) fuel loading patterns. An optimal loading pattern is defined in which the local power peaking factor is lower than a predetermined value during one cycle and the effective multiplication factor is maximized to extract the maximum energy. The OFSS is a hybrid system in which a rule-based system, fuzzy logic, and an artificial neural network (ANN) are connected with each other. The rule-based system classifies loading patterns into two types by using several heuristic rules and a fuzzy rule. The fuzzy rule is introduced to achieve a more effective and faster search. Its membership function is automatically updated in accordance with the prediction results. The ANN predicts core parameters for the patterns generated from the rule-based system. A backpropagation network is used for fast prediction of the core parameters. The ANN and fuzzy logic can be used to improve the capabilities of existing algorithms. The OFSS was demonstrated and validated for cycle 1 of theKori-1 PWR.