New Selection Criteria for Channel Refueling of a CANDU-6 Reactor: Introduction to "Floppy Rules"

Abstract

A revised set of rules is in use at Gentilly-2 NGS for the selection of channels for refuelling. Traditional hard channel rejection rules (of go/no-go type) have been replaced by a more efficient set of soft evaluation rules based on concepts borrowed to the Fuzzy Logic. New evaluation rules, labelled as "Floppy Rules", enable to assess and rate the channel suitability for refuelling by using a smooth and natural continuum of values qualifying excellent, good, fair and poor choices. Global channel suitability for refuelling is measured by combining separate ratings obtained from individual evaluation rules. Each evaluation rule is based on a specific control parameter related to local or lumped core properties. Two new software codes (NEWRULES and REFUEL) designed around the concept of Floppy Rules enable to perform a very efficient selection of optimized channel refuelling sequences either in manual and automatic mode.