Iterative Solution to the Optimal Poison Management Problem in Pressurized Water Reactors

Abstract

A new method for solving the optimal poison management problem for a multiregion pressurized water reactor has been developed. The optimization objective is to maximize the end-of-cycle core excess reactivity for any given beginning-of-cycle fuel loading. The problem is treated as an optimal control problem with the region burnup and control absorber concentrations acting as the state and control variables, respectively. Constraints are placed on the power peaking, soluble boron concentration, and control absorber concentrations. The solution method consists of successive relinearizations of the system equations resulting in a sequence of nonlinear programming problems whose solutions converge to the desired optimal control solution.

Application of the method to several test problems based on a simplified three-region reactor suggests a bang-bang optimal control strategy with the peak power location switching between the inner and outer regions of the core and the critical soluble boron concentration as low as possible throughout the cycle.