Optimized Design of Reactor Cores for Continuous Operation of Belgian Nuclear Power Plants

摘要

Two Belgian nuclear power plants, owned and operated by Electrabel, were initially planned to be phased out in 2015, reaching their maximum life time of operation by the initial design The fuel management of those two units has been subsequently designed by Tractebel to make the best use of the energy in the fuel assemblies either in the core or in the storage pool and to minimize the size of the fresh reloads in the terminating cycles. However, for ensuring energy security in Belgium, the Government decided in the same year to extend the life time of operation of the two units for 10 years, which raised the need to resume their continuous operation, in the opposite direction of the core contents and with a significant break in the usual sequence of cycle reloads All this required adaptation of the tools and process for optimized reactor core design, in order to ensure the continuous and flexible operation of those units. This paper presents Tractebel's improved core design tools and process, the approach to optimize the reactor core design, and the applications to the two successive but opposite design requirements.