The effect of refueling decisions and engineering constraints on the fuel management for a pressurized water reactor

>From nuclear utilities planning methods symposium; Chattanooga, Tennessee (16 Jan 1974). In collection of papers presented at the nuclear utilities planning methods symposium. The principal objectives of this study were to determine the limitations imposed on feasible variations in the cycle-to- cycle energy by engineering constraints and to evaluate the economic effects of the feasible variations. Thus the effects of variations in both reload batch size and enrichment on cycle energy potential, limiting engineering parameters and fuel cycle costs were studied. Since each commercial nuclear reactor type behaves differently to reload fuel decisions and a detailed analysis of all commercial reactor types is an impossible task for a project of this type, this investigation was limited to analyzing a typical class of pressurized water reactors (PWR) of approximately 1000 MW(e) capacity. The Zion-I PWR designed and butlt by Westinghouse and owned by the Commonwealth Edison Company was chosen for this analysis. Although there are differences between this type of PWR and other commercial reactor types, the general conclusions and insights gained in this analysis can also be extended to these other reactor types and sizes. (10 references) (auth)