ASSESSMENT OF PARALLEL SIMULATED ANNEALING PERFORMANCE WITH THE NEXUS/ANC9 CORE DESIGN CODE SYSTEM

Boyan D Ivanov,David J Kropaczek,M Margulis,P Blaise

doi:10.1051/epjconf/202124702019

Boyan D Ivanov, David J Kropaczek + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/202124702019

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Abstract

The method of parallel simulated annealing is being considered as a loading pattern optimization method to be used within the framework of the latest Westinghouse core design code system NEXUS/ANC9. A prototype version of NEXUS/ANC9 that incorporates the parallel simulated annealing method was developed. The prototype version was evaluated in terms of robustness, performance and results. The prototype code was used to optimize LPs for several plants and cycles, including 2-loop, 3-loop and 4-loop Westinghouse plants. Different fuel assembly lattices with IFBA, WABA and Gadolinium burnable absorbers were also exercised in these cores. Different strategies were evaluated using different options in the code. Special attention was paid to the robustness and performance when different number of parallel processes were used with different size of Markov chain.

Highlights

Westinghouse recently developed and released its latest core design code system NEXUS/ANC9 [1]
The goal of this study is to find proper inputs that would lead to acceptable results in reasonable running time
The Parallel Simulated Annealing (PSA) method with NEXUS/ANC9 was tested on several real-world plants and cycles, including 2loop, 3-loop and 4-loop Westinghouse cores

Summary

Introduction

Westinghouse recently developed and released its latest core design code system NEXUS/ANC9 [1]. This new core design code system was significantly upgraded from its predecessor, to such an extent, that the existing Loading Pattern (LP) optimization tools could not be used with the new system. The first step was to investigate the existing Westinghouse LP optimization codes ALPS [2] and PEARLS [3] as possible candidates to be updated to work with the latest core design system. Of the final LP candidates, a few are selected by the designer and explicit calculations are performed using the ANC8 core design code system with additional manual assembly transitions and rotations to arrive at the final LP.

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Results

Conclusion