Reactor Fuel Management Optimization in a Dynamic Environment

The computational system, 2DBCOST, efficiently determines optimum fast reactor fuel management strategies. 2DBCOST, including the associated optimization technique used, provides a basis on which to study the impact of variables such as fabrication, reprocessing, shipping, interest, fuel handling, material costs, inventory lead times, and post-irradiation lag times on reactor fuel costs and to subsequently determine the lowest cost operating policy. The computational system will adjust an LMFBR fuel management policy to meet changing economic or marketplace conditions. Trial use has shown that the code will rapidly determine an optimum fast-reactor blanket fuel management scheme for the cases studied. The impact of both blanket radial out-in subassembly movement and moderator seeding was investigated. Cost penalties associated with moving six sub-assemblies per cycle less than the optimum will approach three million dollars over a 10-year period; similar savings are demonstrated with respect to moderator seeding. The objective function is shown to be unimodal.