Automated Control Rod Programming in Boiling Water Reactor Cores

The decreased number of rods that are moved for power shaping in a boiling water reactor (BWR) with a control cell core (CCC) design make automated control rod programming feasible. A three-dimensional computer code, RODPRO, has therefore been developed for automatically generating a long-term control rod program for a BWR utilizing a CCC design. The program, which conforms to the general industrial practice for BWRs with CCCs, moves individual control rods so as to bring the core to criticality at each burnup step. By the use of heuristic rules, the procedure avoids complex theoretical approaches while eliminating tedious trial-and-error studies. The rod patterns so generated are shown to be consistent with real world requirements.