Digitalization in the Design of Nuclear Power Plants: Usage of Metaheuristic Algorithms

Nowadays, the design time of Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs) technological systems has lengthened. Moreover, NPPs are considered as a prospective energy resource for production of auxiliary products (hydrogen, potable water). The design process of NPPs technological systems requires approval of their calculated characteristics. This approval leads up to increase in the design time. Digitalization processes allow to reduce resources for NPPs design, in particular the design time. To reduce this time, the methods of multiobjective optimization can be used as a part of digitalization in Nuclear Power Engineering. Traditionally, multiobjective optimization is performed using a special class of optimization algorithms - metaheuristic algorithms. Universality of these algorithms allows to use them in multiobjective optimization tasks for several spheres of NPPs design. Ratio test method was used to analyze the decrease of design time for several NPP design tasks: heat balances calculations; maintenance of safety systems; performance assessment and hydrogen production. The results of the ratio test show the effectiveness of using metaheuristic algorithms for reducing design time of NPPs technological systems. On the other hand, these algorithms should be used with caution: in several cases different results can be obtained.