Application of Genetic Algorithm for optimization of fuel management in nuclear reactors

Genetic algorithm is one of the optimization techniques, successfully applied in nuclear reactor environment for a variety of applications. Nuclear fuel management optimization is a classical nuclear engineering problem, which has been studied extensively and several techniques, including genetic algorithms, have been used for its solution. The study presented in this paper addresses the overall procedures and methods developed for the application of genetic algorithms in the optimization studies of nuclear fuel management. The result obtained from a study that explores a typical application of genetic algorithm in nuclear fuel management is also presented. Finding out of optimal number of fuel subassemblies in the core of a nuclear reactor (having power generating capacity of 500 MWe) is taken up for the study. The results demonstrate the suitability and efficiency of the algorithm in generating feasible solutions for the selected optimization problem.