Abstract
Commercial Light Water Reactor (LWR) operators and fuel vendors in the United States are exploring changes to nuclear fuel that include low-enriched uranium plus (LEU+) designs to further improve operational economics. LEU+ designs contain fuel with maximum enrichments below 10 wt% 235U but higher than the current limit of 5 wt% 235U. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) recently funded a study to analyze the lattice-level and core-level performance of LEU+ fuel assemblies in Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs). Using LEU+ is expected to maintain reactivity to higher burnup but also to require higher burnable poison content to suppress reactivity swings. New lattice designs are required to utilize the maximum energy output while being constrained by core reactivity and thermal limits. To understand the impact of increasing enrichment beyond 5 wt% 235U, a scoping study was performed to explore reactivity and pin peaking factor (PPF) constraints and benefits of LEU+ a ssemblies. The SCALE/Polaris lattice physics code is wrapped onto an optimization driver code called Metaheuristic Optimization Tool (MOT) to automate domain space exploration and optimization of LEU+ lattice designs. Heuristics from previous LWR lattice optimization studies were used to construct the objective function and define the domain space for o ptimization. The overarching goal of this study is to demonstrate the capability to explore, using an automated optimization algorithm, a feasible LEU+ lattice design (GE-14 10×10) that meets the constraints of traditional LWR lattices while extending cycle length.
| Original language | English |
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| Title of host publication | Proceedings of the International Conference on Physics of Reactors, PHYSOR 2022 |
| Publisher | American Nuclear Society |
| Pages | 2582-2591 |
| Number of pages | 10 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 9780894487873 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2022 |
| Event | 2022 International Conference on Physics of Reactors, PHYSOR 2022 - Pittsburgh, United States Duration: May 15 2022 → May 20 2022 |
Publication series
| Name | Proceedings of the International Conference on Physics of Reactors, PHYSOR 2022 |
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Conference
| Conference | 2022 International Conference on Physics of Reactors, PHYSOR 2022 |
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| Country/Territory | United States |
| City | Pittsburgh |
| Period | 05/15/22 → 05/20/22 |
Funding
This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the US Department of Energy (DOE). The US government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the US government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for US government purposes. DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan). Support for this work was provided by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Support for this work was provided by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the US Department of Energy (DOE). The US government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the US government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for US government purposes. DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan).
Keywords
- SCALE
- boiling water reactor
- optimization