A new optimization method based on cellular automata for VVER-1000 nuclear reactor loading pattern

This paper presents a new and innovative optimization technique, which uses cellular automata for solving multi-objective optimization problems. Due to its ability in simulating the local information while taking neighboring effects into account, the cellular automata technique is a powerful tool for optimization. The fuel-loading pattern in nuclear reactor cores is a major optimization problem. Due to the immensity of the search space in fuel management optimization problems, finding the optimum solution requires a huge amount of calculations in the classical method. The cellular automata models, based on local information, can reduce the computations significantly. In this study, reducing the power peaking factor, while increasing the initial excess reactivity inside the reactor core of VVER-1000, which are two apparently contradictory objectives, are considered as the objective functions. The result is an optimum configuration, which is in agreement with the pattern proposed by the designer. In order to gain confidence in the reliability of this method, the aforementioned problem was also solved using neural network and simulated annealing, and the results and procedures were compared. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.