Nuclear Engineering and Design 295 (2015) 84–95

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Nuclear Engineering and Design

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/nucengdes

Core map generation for the ITU TRIGA Mark II research reactor using
Genetic Algorithm coupled with Monte Carlo method
Mehmet Türkmen a,∗ , Üner Çolak b , Şule Ergün a
a
Nuclear Engineering Department, Hacettepe University, Beytepe Campus, Ankara, Turkey
b
Energy Institute, Istanbul Technical University, Ayazağa Campus, Maslak, Istanbul, Turkey

h i g h l i g h t s

• Optimum core maps were generated for the ITU TRIGA Mark II Research Reactor.
• Calculations were performed using a Monte Carlo based reactor physics code, MCNP.
• Single-Objective and Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithms were used for the optimization.
• keff and ppfmax were considered as the optimization objectives.
• The generated core maps were compared with the fresh core map.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The main purpose of this study is to present the results of Core Map (CM) generation calculations for the
Received 10 April 2015 İstanbul Technical University TRIGA Mark II Research Reactor by using Genetic Algorithms (GA) coupled
Received in revised form 12 August 2015 with a Monte Carlo (MC) based-particle transport code. Optimization problems under consideration
Accepted 15 August 2015
are: (i) maximization of the core excess reactivity (ex ) using Single-Objective GA when the burned fuel
Available online 19 October 2015
elements with no fresh fuel elements are used, (ii) maximization of the ex and minimization of maximum
power peaking factor (ppfmax ) using Multi-Objective GA when the burned fuels with fresh fuels are used.
The results were obtained when all the control rods are fully withdrawn. ex and ppfmax values of the
produced best CMs were provided. Core-averaged neutron spectrum, and variation of neutron fluxes with
respect to radial distance were presented for the best CMs. The results show that it is possible to find an
optimum CM with an excess reactivity of 1.17 when the burned fuels are used. In the case of a mix of
burned fuels and fresh fuels, the best pattern has an excess reactivity of 1.19 with a maximum peaking
factor of 1.4843. In addition, when compared with the fresh CM, the thermal fluxes of the generated CMs
decrease by about 2% while change in the fast fluxes is about 1%.Classification: J. Core physics
© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
In reactor operations, at the end of each fuel cycle, either some of
the burned fuel elements are replaced with fresh fuels (partial core
replacement) or burned fuels are shuffled. For research reactors,
fuel shuffling process is very important due to a fuel shortage prob-
lem which is currently emerged and due to the need for sustainable
operations without long-time interruptions which demand certain
requirements (e.g., a definite irradiation period, specific neutron
flux values at the specific locations and a flexible core map). The
most important challenge in performing the fuel shuffling or par-
tial core replacement is the preservation of the safety limits. Safety
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +90 312 297 73 00; fax: +90 312 299 21 22.
E-mail address: tm@hacettepe.edu.tr (M. Türkmen).
criteria on the maximum power peaking and the maximum excess
reactivity strictly hinder the use of a random Core Map (CM). For
this reason, all the CMs, formed by whether replacement with the
fresh fuels or the shuffling, need optimization.
The idea of optimization begins with a desire to find the best
configuration through minimization (or maximization); however,
it also comes with many challenges to overcome. The most impor-
tant one is that a typical minimization problem contains many local
minima and only one global minimum. This implies that there is
always a chance that a solver, which is designed to find the global
minimum, may fall into a local minimum. Moreover, most engi-
neering problems have more than one (multiple) objective to be
minimized, and these objectives require optimization all at once.
Also, the size of the solution space is a concern on the optimization
and it is directly related to the count of used variables. More variable
means the larger solution space to be examined. Searching large

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nucengdes.2015.08.022
0029-5493/© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 M. Türkmen et al. / Nuclear Engineering and Design 295 (2015) 84–95
solution spaces requires a vast amount of time and lots of effort
even for relatively small problems like Traveling Salesman Prob-
lem (TSP). In order to decrease the computational time, to maximize
the solution performance and reliability, and to minimize the cost
output (function evaluation), so far, many theories, approaches and
analytic methods such as Genetic Algorithm (GA) (Goldberg, 1989),
Pattern Search (Hooke and Jeeves, 1961) and Simulated Annealing
Algorithm (Stevens et al., 1995) have been developed.
The type of the problem determines which solution method(s)
is the most suitable for optimization analyses. For example, the
stochastic methods are superior, not the best, in the area of in-core
nuclear fuel management calculations than the mathematical opti-
mization methods like (non)linear and quadratic, and work well
for the pattern search problems (Turinsky et al., 2005). Among the
optimization methods, the GA is very attractive since it imitates the
way the nature does (behaves) to get more diverse and better gen-
erations. Although the GA concept (Holland, 1975) was emerged
in the late 1960s, Alan Turing (Turing, 1950) lit the GA fire with a
question of “Can machines think?”. More than half a century, the
GA is used to solve the various complex engineering problems. Still,
there is a growing endeavor to make the GA better. For this purpose,
a number of innovative methods such as VEGA (Schaffer, 1985),
NSGA (Srinivas and Deb, 1994), SPEA (Zitzler and Thiele, 1999) and
DMOEA (Yen and Lu, 2003) have been suggested to cope with the
various complicated problems.
In the literature, the GA is frequently used to optimize CMs for
different types of nuclear power reactors such as PWR (Zameer
et al., 2014), AHWR (Thakur et al., 2013), BWR (François et al., 2013),
and VVER (Karahroudi et al., 2013). Yet, several noteworthy stud-
ies outlined below have been published within 10 years to find the
optimum CMs for the research reactors.
To find the optimum CMs for the research reactors, optimal fuel
loading strategies were searched for TRIGA Mark II reactor at AERE,
Savar (Huda et al., 2008). Although the fuel elements were shuffled
according to the out-in fuel management strategy to obtain a better
CM, an optimum CM was not investigated by taking the maximum
fuel utilization into account. Instead, a simple fuel shuffling was
performed after the core reached a nominal condition (decided by
the researcher) for its life. In the study, the results were obtained
by using TRIGAP, MVP-BURN, and MCNP4C-ORIGEN2.1. The results
of the study showed that extension of reactor core lifetime to some
degree was possible by finding an optimum burnup value for the
reshuffling. A similar study was carried out by Lyric et al. (2013) for
the BAEC TRIGA reactor. To obtain the optimum burnup, different
fuel loading schemes were investigated from the viewpoint of core
life extension, neutron economy, and reactor safety. According to
the study, the most preferable scheme, which meets the require-
ments, was to fill the core with the burned fuel elements along
with the ten fresh fuel elements in each cycle after an initial cycle
containing five fresh fuel elements.
Do and Nguyen (2007) proposed optimum refueling schemes
for the TRIGA Mark II reactor of Vietnam by using Single-Objective
Genetic Algorithm (SOGA) and Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithm
(MOGA). Using the reactor physics codes of CITATION and WIMSD,
it was found that most of the fresh fuels had to be located around
the core center for the optimal low-leakage CM. Mazrou and
Hamadouche (2006) investigated optimal core configurations for
the 10 MW IAEA LEU research reactor by combining a stochastic
method, Simulated Annealing and an adaptive back-propagation
neural network. Hedayat et al. (2009) published the results of
optimum core configuration calculations for a reference research
reactor by using a hybrid algorithm (MOGA linked with the cascade
feed forward artificial neutral networks). Later, a refueling opti-
mization problem was solved for the objectives of maximum cycle
length and maximum irradiating thermal neutron flux (Hedayat,
2014).
85
This study is considered as part of an ongoing extensive neu-
tronic research to use the computer model of the research reactor
in medical/industrial applications. Validity of the reactor model
and burnup calculation of the fuel elements have been successfully
shown in previous separate studies (Türkmen et al., 2015; Türkmen
and Çolak, 2013, 2014a,b). In this work, fuel shuffling studies were
performed for the İstanbul Technical University (ITU) TRIGA Mark
II Research and Training reactor by using the results of the previous
studies. The considered case studies for the shuffling are: (i) use of
the burned fuels with no fresh fuels and (ii) a mix of burned fuels
and fresh fuels. For this purpose, Single-Objective GA (SOGA) and
Multi-Objective GA (MOGA) were employed. Core excess reactivity
(ex ) and maximum power peaking factor (ppfmax ) were considered
as the optimization objectives. The SOGA is used in the first case to
search a maximum value for the ex while the MOGA is utilized
in the second case to find out a maximum ex value considering a
safety constraint on the ppfmax . The data (e.g., burnup value, spent
fuel content) used in the fuel shuffling calculations were obtained
from the results of the burnup analyses that were presented in a
different study (Türkmen et al., 2015). The best CMs, which would
possibly extend the reactor cycle life-time and maximize the fuel
utilization, were determined.
2. Shuffling calculations and application of the Genetic
Algorithm
2.1. Problem description
The primary purpose of this study is to produce a set of CMs for
the ITU TRIGA Mark II research reactor which would maximize the
fuel utilization and extend the fuel cycle length. The burned and
fresh fuel elements are considered for the CM generation. Using
these fuel elements, generation of a CM can be achieved in three
different ways. The first is the use of the burned fuels without using
fresh fuels. The idea stands on changing the locations of the burned
fuel elements inside the core. Typically, the fuel rods located at the
rings are shifted to an inner ring while the fuels rods located at the
most-inner ring are shifted to the most-outer ring. This method,
called out-in in-core fuel management, is very fast since there
is only one CM to be prepared and to be searched, and efficient
since a certain extension in the fuel cycle length to some degree
is expected; however, it is not functional to obtain an optimum
CM. Another solution is to shuffle the burned fuel rods in a random
way and then to choose the best one from among them. However,
this method has some disadvantages. The most crucial one is the
decision on the number of CMs to be searched. Also, this method
is not efficient as much as out-in strategy due to the fact that all of
the generated CMs have to be examined one by one. Yet, there is a
chance, even if infinitesimal, to discover an optimum CM. Second is
the use of a mix of burned fuels and fresh fuels. In this instance, the
arrangement of the fuel rods inside the core is very different from
the first case described above. As an example, fresh fuels can be
inserted into the specific locations such as to the most-outer/inner
ring to create a low-leakage core, and close to irradiation channels
to obtain maximum neutron flux. Third is the use of fresh fuels with
no burned fuels. This is the easiest one if all the fuels to be used are
completely identical. In all cases except for the last one, it is pos-
sible to generate countless unique CMs using the mentioned fuel
types. In addition to enormous number of CMs, the produced CMs
completely depend on the user experiences/knowledge. Yet, still,
the main problem is a desire for a particular CM which satisfies all
the requirements including safety constraints. In this manner, this
study handles first two cases and aims to obtain a set of optimum
CMs for the considered research reactor. The case studies consid-
ered in this study for the core shuffling are: (i) use of the burned fuel
86 M. Türkmen et al. / Nuclear Engineering and Design 295 (2015) 84–95

F30 F1 F2
F29 35 34 34
PS
36
F28 F4 Element Number
E24 E1 E2
37 34 A1
E23 25 24 25
F27 E3 F5 MT
38 28 Material Number
D1 25 33
E22 D18 E4
14 D2
30 17 22 F6
NS D17 12
D3 32 GR : Graphite Fuel Element
E21 19 C1 13
RR NS : Neutron Source
29 C12 5 C2 F7
D4 CT : Central Thimble
GR TR 10 4 33
17 PS : Pneumatic Transfer System
E20 C11 B1 C3 E6 RR : Regulating Rod
32 13 2 8 22 F8 SR : Safety Rod
D15 B6 B2 D5
GR 16 34 TR : Transient Rod
22 5 1
E19 C10 C4 E7
CT
33 15 9 26 F9
D14 B5 B3 D6
GR 36
22 7 3 18
E18 C9 B4 C5 E8
34 17 6 11 27
GR D13 C8 C6 D7 GR
25 18 13 20
E17 E9
D12 SR
34 D8 30
GR 25 21 GR
E16 D11 D9 E10
35 25 D10 23 31
E15 22
GR E11 GR
35 E14 32
E12
GR 35 E13
33 GR
34
GR GR
GR GR
GR

Fig. 1. ITU TRIGA Mark II research reactor core map at EOL used for the optimization analyses. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader
is referred to the web version of this article.)

elements with no fresh fuels, (ii) use of the burned fuel elements
with the fresh fuels.
To obtain optimum CMs free from the user dependency, as a
search method, two different methods of the GA, SOGA and MOGA,
are utilized. The details on the application of the GA and the case
studies are given in the following sections. The latest CM of the
ITU TRIGA Mark II reactor used for the optimization analyses is
shown in Fig. 1. Initially, all the fuel elements containing 8.5% U
enriched with 20% 235 U with no Erbium content are identical. As
the reactor operates, isotopic content of each fuel element changes
depending on the position inside the core. Material distribution was
obtained for the End of Life (EOL) condition by performing the bur-
nup calculation (Türkmen et al., 2015). While at the Beginning of
Life (BOL) initial excess reactivity of the given CM was obtained to
be about 1.4 $, at EOL excess reactivity was zero. In the figure, the
burned fuel elements are enumerated from 1 (the most-burned) to
38 (the least-burned) since 38 different spent fuel materials were
obtained in the burnup calculations. The burnup values of the used
fuel elements are given in Table 1. The fuel elements with the same
material number in the CM are the same materials and completely
identical from the viewpoint of the burnup data and spent fuel con-
tent. There are 69 locations inside the core to be loaded with the
fuel elements. During CM generation, all the positions are filled by
the burned/fresh fuel elements. Fresh fuel elements are numbered
as “0” in the CM. Fresh CM means that the reactor is fully loaded
with the fresh fuels.
2.2. Case studies for shuffling
2.2.1. Shuffling the burned fuel elements with no fresh fuels
In the first case, extension of the core cycle length without using
the fresh fuels was aimed. The total number of the burned fuel
elements used in the CM generation is 69. It is assumed that the
fuel elements used in shuffling are discharged from the reactor
core without a cooling period. The locations in the CM shown in
Fig. 1 are randomly filled by the burned fuel elements. All the data
used in the MC calculations (burnup data and spent fuel content
of each fuel element) were obtained from the results of a pre-
vious study (Türkmen et al., 2015). The results of another study
(Türkmen and Çolak, 2014b) show that the ppfmax is less than the
safety limit of 1.6 when all the fuel elements are fresh. Using this
information, it is assumed that the ppfmax would never exceed
the safety limit when only the burned fuels are used to generate
new CMs. Therefore, in this part of the study, only one CM which
gives the highest ex value was investigated by using the SOGA
method.
2.2.2. Shuffling the burned fuel elements with fresh fuels
This case study focus on the use of burned fuel
s along with the fresh fuels to obtain an optimum CM(s). A
certain number of the most-burned fuel elements were removed
from the core and those were replaced with the fresh ones. The
total number of fuel element used in the CM generation is 69
composed of 59 burned fuels and 10 fresh fuels which are available
for loading in the reactor storage. The fresh and burned fuels
randomly fill the fuel element locations in the CM. With a sound
judgement, using fresh fuels may cause exceeding safety limits
at the locations where the fresh fuels are placed. The reason is
that the fresh fuels have higher excess reactivity than the burned
fuels due to containing higher 235 U content and no fission product
poisoners. Thus, ex and ppfmax parameters were optimized jointly
by taking the safety constraint on the power peaking factor into
account. A set of CMs which give the highest ex value with ppfmax
value lower than the limiting value were investigated by using the
MOGA.
 M. Türkmen et al. / Nuclear Engineering and Design 295 (2015) 84–95 87

Table 1
Burnup values of the used fuel elements.

Material number Burnup (%) Material number Burnup (%) Material number Burnup (%) Material number Burnup (%)

0 0 10 1.34 20 1.11 30 0.90

1 1.51 11 1.28 21 1.06 31 0.88
2 1.50 12 1.25 22 1.02 32 0.83
3 1.45 13 1.25 23 1.02 33 0.79
4 1.42 14 1.23 24 1.01 34 0.78
5 1.40 15 1.22 25 1.00 35 0.76
6 1.39 16 1.20 26 0.98 36 0.72
7 1.39 17 1.20 27 0.96 37 0.63
8 1.36 18 1.19 28 0.95 38 0.63
9 1.36 19 1.14 29 0.92

2.3. Application of the Genetic Algorithm (GA)
Genetic Algorithm is an optimization method that uses natural
evolution processes including inheritance, immigration, mutation,
selection and crossover operators. It uses chromosomes to define
the candidate solutions of a problem. It evolves the candidate solu-
tions toward better solutions. Also, the heuristic search in applying
GA finds the effective solutions for the specific types of the opti-
mization problems. Although it is an effective method, there is no
guarantee to solve every optimization problem. Typically, there are
two types of GA method. First is the Single-Objective GA (shortly
SOGA) developed to solve the problems comprising single objec-
tive. Second is the Multi-Objective GA (MOGA) utilized for the
problems having two or more than two objectives. In this study,
both of them are utilized for the case studies mentioned above.
A continuous GA with discreet variables is used since this tech-
nique is easy to use and does not require coding/decoding of
the chromosomes. Selection, Elitism, Crossover, and Mutation are
the primary genetic operators. For the SOGA, Stochastic Uniform
Sampling Method (SUS) (Baker, 1987) is used in the elitism process
to pass the best solutions to the next generations and to maintain
the diversity of the population while the Binary Tournament, two
individuals are chosen at random and the better of the two individ-
uals is selected, is used in the selection process to determine the
parents of offspring for crossover and mutation operators. In the
case of MOGA, NSGA-II (Deb et al., 2002) with the Binary Tourna-
ment is used for the selection and elitism processes. A continuous
GA flowchart given in Fig. 2 shows the computational main steps
performed. The terms used in the GA are as follows: cost function
means the generated CM which the MCNP uses to calculate the
objectives; (discreet) variables refer to fuel element locations given
in the CM; objectives to be achieved are the ex and ppfmax values
of a generated CM. The used GA methods and the operators are
described below in detail.
2.3.1. Chromosome representation of the generated core maps
Each CM is represented by a unique chromosome in the GA. A
generated chromosome with a chromosome length of n is defined

Define the cost functions,

variables, GA parameters

n=0

Initial population generation

SOGA Initial cost calculation MOGA Identify

Sort the population
for each chromosome non-dominated fronts

Convergence Check: Offspring generation by

Max. generation, Crossover & Mutation
Reactor Physics Code:
Stagnant cycle, etc.
MCNP5
Input & output
Convergence Check:
Offspring generation by Max. generation,
Crossover & Mutation Stagnant cycle, etc.
n=n+1
n=n+1

Cost calculation Cost calculation

Combine population
Combine population with offspring population
with offspring population Offspring generation by
Crossover & Mutation

Identify
Fill the new population non-dominated fronts
Fill the new population
- Crowding distance
- Crowded-comparison

Fig. 2. GA flowchart.
88 M. Türkmen et al. / Nuclear Engineering and Design 295 (2015) 84–95
Genotype= [ 35 24 6 9 … 33 25 33 25 ]
Phenotype= [ B1 B2 B3 B4 … F27 F28 F29 F30 ]
Fig. 3. Genotype and phenotype of a sample chromosome.
by a number of genes. Each gene of a chromosome refers to a dif-
ferent element number (fuel element location) shown in Fig. 1. The
first gene represents B1 element while the last gene is F30. Further-
more, each gene carries specific information such as burnup data
and SF content required for the MC calculations. Same materials in
different locations are defined as the same gene type. Genotype and
phenotype of a produced sample chromosome are given in Fig. 3. As
an illustration, first gene of the sample chromosome is filled with
the material 35 and corresponds to the element location B1. Chro-
mosomes are randomly created from among the 69 burned fuel
elements for the first case study and, 59 burned and 10 fresh fuel
elements for the second case study.
2.3.2. Crossover operator
For the optimization problems described above, all the fuel ele-
ments have to be used for once (similar to well-known Traveling
Salesman Problem – TSP), that is, it is not allowed to use a gene
more than once; therefore, Cycle Crossover (CX) (Oliver et al., 1987)
operator is preferred to produce new offspring from the selected
elite parents with Binary Tournament Selection. This method gen-
erates single offspring so that each gene comes from one of the
corresponding parents. Thus, half of absolute gene positions of both
parents are, on the average, preserved. For example, let’s say one
parent chromosome is [1 2 3 4 5 6] and the other one is [4 5 6
3 1 2]. Then, the new offspring becomes [4 2 6 3 5 1], and the
complementary offspring is [1 5 3 4 2 6].
2.3.3. Mutation operator
For an elite parent selected with Binary Tournament Selection,
a two-point mutation (totally for four fuel elements) is carried out
using Exchange Mutation (or called Reciprocal Exchange) method
(Banzhaf, 1990). According to this method, a randomly selected
gene of an elite parent is swapped with another randomly selected
different gene of the same parent. For instance, suppose that the
parent chromosome is [1 2 3 4 5 6], and randomly selected genes
to be mutated are 2 and 5. In this case, the mutated chromosome
becomes [1 5 3 4 2 6]. If the same materials are chosen for replac-
ing, the mutation process is repeated until a different material is
selected. Further, in order to avoid producing the same offspring,
all the generated chromosomes are stored in the archive, and only
different chromosomes are allowed to pass to the next generation.
2.3.4. Convergence criterion
For the SOGA, besides a limiting number of sequential stagnant
cycles, standard deviation () of the average population in each
generation is calculated and used to terminate the algorithm. If the
calculated deviation is less than a selected limiting value (de ) or
if the population does not get any contribution from a number of
consecutive cycles, the algorithm stops. Otherwise, the algorithm
runs for a number of generations.
In the case of MOGA, convergence criteria are selected to be
not only a limiting difference in the average crowding distance
between the current population and the previous population but
also a limited number of consecutive stagnant cycles.
Number of the consecutive stagnant cycles and minimum value
of the standard deviation of the average population are set to 4
and 2/N, respectively. Minimum change in the average crowding
distance in the current population is limited to 10/N. Maximum
generation is selected to be 200.
2.3.5. Optimization parameters
Population size depends on the problem range and the con-
straints defined. In this study, parent and offspring population sizes
(N) are selected to be 50. A total of population size of 100 is used
in the calculations. A uniform fixed crossover of 0.7 and mutation
fraction of 0.3 are used to produce next population. Furthermore,
since exchanging at least 2 different fuel elements yields a mini-
mum mutation rate of about 0.03 (=2/69), mutation rate is set to
the value changing from 0.03 to 0.06.
2.3.6. Method of SOGA with stochastic uniform sampling method
Consider the following optimization problem:
y = f (x1 , . . ., xn ) subject to xn ∈ S
where y is the objective, f is the cost function to be minimized (or
maximized), xn is the number of variables (may be dependent or
independent) to be optimized, and S is the one-dimensional search
space with the defined upper/lower boundary limits.
This kind of problem is suitable for the SOGA since the SOGA is
capable of solving the optimization problems which contain only
one objective. Sorting the objective in ascending (or descending)
order is sufficient to find the next best population. Stochastic Uni-
form Sampling (SUS) method is the main selection operator for the
SOGA. According to the method, the most probable individuals are
selected with a random step size (equally spaced intervals) from
the current population after sorting the cost values in descending
order. The elite individuals are stored in the archive to use those
in the succeeding generation(s). The main steps of the SOGA are
outlined below:
- For the generation i = 0, create a random initial population (P0 )
with a population size of N.
- Calculate cost functions for each member of the population.
- Sort the population in ascending (or descending) order.
- Check the results for the predefined stopping criteria. If the results
are converged, then stop and provide the solutions. If not, then
go on searching.
- Create an offspring population (O0 ) with a size of N by Crossover
and Mutation operators. Use the Binary Tournament Selection
method to select the parents from the population.
- Calculate cost functions for each member of the offspring popu-
lation.
- For i ≥ 1, combine the population (Ci = Pi ∪ Oi ) with the generated
offspring population. Now, the combined population size is 2 N.
- Fill the new population (Pi + 1 ) from the best solutions of the
combined population by using the elite selection operator of
Stochastic Uniform Sampling until the new population is com-
pletely filled.
- Increase the generation by one (i = i + 1) and go to convergence
check step.
2.3.7. Method of MOGA with NSGA-II
In this case, the following optimization problem was consid-
ered:
y = [f1 (x1 , . . ., xn ) , . . ., fm (x1 , . . ., xn )] subject to xn ∈ S
where y is the objective vector, f is the cost function to be minimized
(or maximized or both), m is the number of objective functions
to be evaluated, xn is the number of variables (may be dependent
or independent) to be optimized, and S is the multi-dimensional
search space with the defined upper/lower boundary limits.
Such problems always have more than one objective to be opti-
mized. Therefore, they require an advanced sorting method which
is quite different from the method that the SOGA uses. In a multi-
objective optimization problem, a feasible solution that all of the
 M. Türkmen et al. / Nuclear Engineering and Design 295 (2015) 84–95
objectives are optimized simultaneously may not exist. In such
cases, there is more than one feasible solution, these solutions are
called Pareto-optimal solutions.
In this study, the selected Multi-Objective GA method used to
find the best CMs is the Non-Dominated Sorting Genetic Algo-
rithm (NSGA-II method) purposed by Deb et al. (2002). It is a
single parameter (only population size), well-tested and efficient
Multi-Objective GA. In the algorithm, fitness assignment is based
on the Fast Non-Dominated Sorting method (see Appendix A for
the details) without an external population. Diversity is preserved
by using the Crowding Distance Mechanism (see Appendix B). The
Crowding Distance provides worthwhile benefits to users by com-
puting the population density close the best solutions. Also, it
provides a uniform spread of solutions along the best-known Pareto
front without using a fitness sharing value. The selection is carried
out by using the Crowded-Comparison operator (see Appendix C).
NSGA-II algorithm is briefly defined in the following main steps:
- For the generation i = 0, create a random initial population (P0 )
with a population size of N.
- Calculate cost functions for each member of the population.
- Identify the non-dominated fronts (F1 , F2 , . . .) using the fast non-
dominated sorting method.
- Create an offspring population (O0 ) with a population size of N
by the Crossover and Mutation operators. Use the Binary Tourna-
ment Selection method to select the parents from the population.
- Check the results for the predefined stopping criteria. If the results
are converged, then stop and provide the Pareto-front solutions.
If not, then go on searching.
- Calculate cost functions for each member of the offspring popu-
lation.
- For i ≥ 1, combine the population (Ci = Pi ∪ Oi ) with the generated
offspring population. Now, the combined population size is 2 N.
- Identify the non-dominated fronts (F1 , F2 , . . .) of Ci using the fast
non-dominated sorting method.
- Calculate crowding distance value of each solution in each front
using the Crowding Distance method.
- Fill the new population (Pi + 1 ) from the subsequent non-
dominated fronts with respect to their rank (from the best
solutions of F1 in the Ci ) until the new population is filled.
- If the size of the last non-dominated front Fn causes exceed-
ing the size of the new population, select the best solutions by
sorting the solution of the last front according to the Crowded-
Comparison operator in descending order and then fill the
population with the least-crowded solutions until no more
position remains.
- Create an offspring population with a population size of N by the
Crossover and Mutation operators. Use the Binary Tournament
Selection method by selecting the parents from the population
based on the Crowded-Comparison operator.
- Increase the generation by one (i = i + 1) and go to convergence
check step.
2.3.8. Cost calculation: Reactor physics code
MCNP5 (X-5 Monte Carlo Team, 2005) is selected as a Monte
Carlo based-reactor physics code for the cost calculations (function
evaluations). The code is capable of solving the neutron transport
problems including calculation of multiplication factor and cell-
average flux values in a critical system. In this study, the code is
used to calculate the ex and ppfmax for each generated CM.
Excess reactivity is calculated by using the formula (keff − 1)/keff .
For ppfmax calculations, pin-power peaking factor, the peak rod
power to core-average rod power ratio, namely hot rod peak-
ing factor, is used as the safety limit since it is reported in the
previous study (Türkmen and Çolak, 2014b) that other safety limits
89
(e.g., peak-to-average axial power density of the hot rod) are almost
unvarying and within the safety limits defined by Safety Analysis
Report.
Each chromosome created by the GA codes (SOGA and MOGA)
is sent (as input) to a prepared script to get the cost values. The
script converts chromosomes to the input decks for which the
selected physics code understands. Moreover, another generated
script extracts the ex and ppfs values from the code output.
MC model of the reactor is based on the previous study
(Türkmen and Çolak, 2014b). Material compositions of the burned
fuel elements used in the MC model are obtained from the results of
the previous study (Türkmen et al., 2015). The model includes only
neutron transport calculations for the particles having energies less
than 20 MeV. The upper and lower energy boundaries for thermal
neutrons are selected to be 10−5 and 0.625 eV, respectively. More,
it is assumed that energy of a fast neutron must be in the range
of 0.1–20 MeV. Therefore, epithermal energy range is in between
0.625 eV and 100 keV. KCODE criticality calculations use 5000 neu-
trons per cycle with 50 passive and 250 active cycles. The used
history yields a maximum relative error of 0.00070 for the mul-
tiplication factor and 0.0040 for the power peaking factor. F4 cell
flux tally (particles/cm2 s) is used to obtain the power peaking fac-
tor values of the fuel elements. FMESH averaged over a mesh cell
(particles/cm2 ) is used to evaluate neutron fluxes with respect to
radial distance and core-average neutron spectrum. The neutron
spectrum calculations are carried out using the group bounds based
on 238-group ENDF/B-V.
A full core calculation is performed since the reactor core is
asymmetric. To remain within the defined safety limits of the reac-
tor, all the control rods are set to their fully-withdrawn positions.
It is assumed that the reactor operates at the steady-state and hot
full-power conditions. Neutron cross-section libraries at the mean
temperatures of the materials are used.
3. Results
3.1. Shuffling the burned fuels without fresh fuels
Change of several SOGA results with the generation is plot-
ted in Fig. 4. The figure shows that the number of contributions
decrease as the generation increases and, no contribution at some
generations is observed. According to the results, the best pat-
tern has a multiplication factor of 1.00867 (1.173 $) ± 0.00068 with
a maximum power peaking of 1.4826 ± 0.0041. Maximum power
production, located at the node B1 (instrumented fuel element
location) in fresh core map, is observed in node B1. The same fig-
ure also includes change of the average population and the best
solution as the number of generations increase. The average pop-
ulation first increases rapidly and then levels off at around 1.05 $.
After more than 30 generations (1500 iterations), the SOGA gives
the best chromosome. Standard deviation fluctuates around 0.069
and seemingly remains constant even if the generation increases.
However, to increase the population size and number of genera-
tion would lead to decrease the standard deviation. As seen in the
figure, there is almost no change in the average population and
its corresponding standard deviation after about 50th generation.
In addition to these, contributions decrease significantly. Thus, it
can be deduced that the solution is converged. At this point, the
algorithm stopped after the four stagnant cycles.
The best pattern (upper values) obtained using SOGA is illus-
trated in Fig. 5. The results are provided in terms of fractional
burnup. The fuel element marked with vertical lines indicates the
location of the ppfmax . When compared with the out-in fuel man-
agement, the fuel elements with higher burnup are not located in
90 M. Türkmen et al. / Nuclear Engineering and Design 295 (2015) 84–95

1.40 0.10

1.20
0.09
1.00

0.08
0.80

ρex ($)

σunb.
0.60
0.07

0.40 Offspring contributions

Best solution 0.06
0.20 Average population
Standard deviation
0.00 0.05
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Generation

Fig. 4. Change of SOGA results with the generation.

Fig. 5. Best patterns obtained using SOGA (upper) and MOGA (lower). (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web
version of this article.)

the inner rings. Instead, they are dispersed more or less evenly
throughout the core.
3.2. Shuffling the burned fuels with the fresh fuels
Fig. 6 shows the average population and offspring contributions
to the elite population. It is clear that as the number of gen-
erations increase, the number of contributions from the current
population to the next population decrease. Average crowding dis-
tance changes with the generation; however, it becomes constant
after about 60th generation. The algorithm stopped at the 103th
generation due to stagnant cycle criterion. The best pattern (lower
values) obtained using MOGA is illustrated in Fig. 5. The pattern
is selected from the pareto-front solutions in accordance with the
maximum ex and the ppfmax lower than 1.5. Noting that “zero” bur-
nup values in the CM indicate locations of fresh fuel elements. The
pattern has a multiplication factor of 1.00880 (1.195 $) ± 0.00068
with a maximum peaking factor of 1.4843 ± 0.0041. Maximum
power production is observed in node B1. Initial generation, mid-
point (50th) and pareto-front (final) solutions on the solution space
are plotted in Fig. 7. The solutions approach the pareto-front line as
the generation increases. According to the results, it appears that
 M. Türkmen et al. / Nuclear Engineering and Design 295 (2015) 84–95 91

1.40 0.7
Offspring contributions
Average population
1.20 Average crowding distance
0.6

Average Crowding Distance

1.00

0.5
0.80

ρex ($) 0.60

0.4

0.40
0.3
0.20

0.00 0.2
0 20 40 60 80 100
Generation

Fig. 6. Change of MOGA results with the generation.

1.40
Initial generation
Mid-point (50th)
1.20
Pareto-front (final)

1.00

0.80
ρex ($)

0.60

0.40

0.20

0.00
1.44 1.45 1.46 1.47 1.48 1.49 1.5 1.51
ppfmax

Fig. 7. Initial, mid-point and pareto-front solutions on the solution space.

the Pareto-front solutions converge a semi-concave curved line.
All the solutions in the pareto-front solutions can be used for the
specific purposes.
3.3. Comparison of the generated best core maps with the fresh
core map
The result of the previous study (Türkmen et al., 2015) shows
that the reactor loaded with the fresh fuels has an initial excess
reactivity of about 1.4 $ (keff ≈ 1.0103) at the hot full power condi-
tion, fission product equilibrium and steady-state condition. Using
this information, the reactivity difference between the SOGA and
fresh core is found to be 23 ± 10 cent while the reactivity difference
between the MOGA and fresh core is 21 ± 10 cent. It is clear that
excess reactivity of any CM to be generated using the GAs cannot
be higher than that of the fresh CM. That is why, it seems that the
calculated best core maps are quite sufficient to use as the reloading
patterns.
Variation of thermal neutron flux with the radial distance for
the fresh CM and the best CMs obtained using the SOGA and MOGA
is shown in Fig. 8. A similar figure, Fig. 9, is presented for the
variation of the fast flux. Also, fractional changes of the obtained
best patterns from the fresh CM are given in the same figures in
units of percentage. In these figures, “zero” radial distance means
core center; negative and positive values illustrate right and left
hand sides of the CM. Flux calculations are extended through the
graphite and water blocks.
From the figures, although the shape of the thermal/fast neutron
fluxes of the generated CMs fits very well with the shape of the
fresh CM, there is an absolute decrease in the thermal fluxes at the
center of the reactor core. All the fractional changes appear almost
symmetric from the core center. It means that total reactivity of
the right side of the CM nearly equals to that of the left side. It is
calculated that there is a certain decrease in the thermal flux up
to 3.0%1 for the SOGA and 2.0% for the MOGA inside the reactor
core. When compared with the fresh CM, a significant thermal flux
increase in the SOGA is observed inside the graphite and water
blocks. An interesting point is that the thermal flux makes a peak at
periphery of the core when the SOGA is used; but, not for the MOGA.
1
Computational error of the calculated values is no more than 0.3%.
92 M. Türkmen et al. / Nuclear Engineering and Design 295 (2015) 84–95

7.0 8
Fresh Core Map
SOGA
6.0 MOGA 6
SOGA/Fresh

Neutron Flux (1012 n cm-2 s-1)

MOGA/Fresh
5.0 4

Fractional Change (%)

4.0 2

3.0 0

2.0 -2

1.0 Graphite Reactor Core Graphite -4

Water Water

0.0 -6
-70 -60 -50 -40 -30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Radial Distance (cm)

Fig. 8. Change of thermal flux with the radial distance for the generated core maps. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred
to the web version of this article.)

6.0 6
Fresh Core Map
SOGA 5
MOGA
5.0
SOGA/Fresh
4
Neutron Flux (1012 n cm-2 s-1)

MOGA/Fresh

Fractional Change (%)

4.0 3

2
3.0
1

2.0 0

-1
1.0
Water Graphite Reactor Core Graphite Water -2

0.0 -3
-70 -60 -50 -40 -30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Radial Distance (cm)

Fig. 9. Change of fast flux with the radial distance for the generated core maps. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to
the web version of this article.)

This situation can be attributed to the positional arrangement of
the fuel elements inside the core, referring to Fig. 5. Fast flux inside
the core is higher than (not more than 1%) the fresh core when
the burned fuels with fresh fuels are used. Similar to thermal flux
distribution of the SOGA, fast flux of the SOGA is lower than (about
1% less) the fresh core at the core center and then rapidly increases
(by about 1%) at the most outer rings, in particular in the Ring E.
This is because most of the least-burned fuel elements are located
at that ring.
Core-averaged neutron spectrum for the fresh CM and the best
CMs optimized using the SOGA and MOGA is plotted in Fig. 10.
For the tally purposes, the mesh geometry is limited to the fuel
element length (including top/bottom graphite reflectors) in the
axial direction and to the inner surface of the graphite reflector in
the radial direction. The results show that when the fuel elements
are arranged as suggested in the SOGA and/or MOGA, no signif-
icant change is observed in the range of about 1 eV and 10 MeV.
However, spectra are affected considerably by the core arrange-
ments, after the particular energy less than 1 eV. According to the
figure, replacing a number of burned fuels with the fresh fuels in
the MOGA results in about 10% flux collapse near 0.2 eV. In the case
of SOGA, there is more than 20% increase in the same energy. This
is because 235 U has a peak absorption cross section at that energy.
It should be noted that the fractional change in the energy intervals
of higher than 10 MeV and less than 10−4 eV is meaningless due to
huge computational error.
Removal of a certain quantity of neutron poisons (e.g., Xe and
Sm) from the reactor core causes significant decrease in the num-
ber of neutrons absorbed in the thermal energy range (as seen in
thermal spectrum of the MOGA after 0.04 eV), whereas the pres-
ence of the poisoners leads to a significant reduction in the number
of neutrons less than 0.07 eV (as in the thermal spectrum of the
SOGA). In addition, small changes in 238 U content of the core yield
higher/lower resonance absorptions around neutron energy of 1 eV.
4. Discussion
Besides the objectives (ex and ppfmax ) optimized in this study,
neutron group fluxes in the central thimble, pneumatic system,
beam ports and thermal column should be optimized simulta-
neously. This is because these irradiation channels are frequently
used in the critical experiments, some of which require certain neu-
tron flux values. This study shows that the CM produced by the
MOGA just meets the requirements for the central thimble irradi-
ation channel by providing the thermal/fast flux at the core center
(from Fig. 8) as much as the fresh CM. In addition, of course, other
irradiation channels must be analyzed carefully. However, for now,
 M. Türkmen et al. / Nuclear Engineering and Design 295 (2015) 84–95 93

1.0E+12 40
Fresh Core Map
1.0E+11 SOGA
MOGA 30
1.0E+10 SOGA/Fresh

Neutron Flux (n cm-2 s-1)

MOGA/Fresh

Fractional Change (%)

1.0E+09 20

1.0E+08
10
1.0E+07

1.0E+06 0

1.0E+05
-10
1.0E+04

1.0E+03 -20
1.0E-11 1.0E-09 1.0E-07 1.0E-05 1.0E-03 1.0E-01 1.0E+01
Energy (MeV)

Fig. 10. Core-averaged neutron spectrum for the generated core maps. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web
version of this article.)

these channels are beyond the interest of this study and will be
investigated as a future study.
Recalling the parameters used in the GA such as population
size, crossover/mutation fractions, mutation rate and convergence
criteria, they were adjusted using the user experiences and the
outcomes of the previous studies described in the literature. For
instance, the total population size of 100 was used in this study
while the previously published articles were used the population
sizes of 50 to 200 depending on the problem size. Similarly, most of
the GA methods imply to use a mutation rate of 0.01 in order not to
turn the solver into classic search event. However, a mutation rate
changing from 0.03 (min) to 0.06 (max) was preferred in this study
as the exchange mutation method was adjusted to swap up to 4
fuel elements at once. In brief, small changes in these parameters
significantly affects the convergence, speed and, thus, the obtained
optimum solutions. Therefore, the users must be aware of which
values of the parameters are better for their problems.
Although the solutions provided in this study are stated as the
best solutions, it should be noted that those, in fact, may not be
the best. The reason is the stopping criteria defined by a num-
ber of external parameters. In the study, the best patterns were
obtained when the stagnant cycle criterion specified was success-
fully achieved. Therefore, one thing should be noted that there is,
however, a possibility to find a better CM(s) if the algorithms go on
searching through the search space.
The most important issue in an optimization study is the time
required to compute a cost value. Although the Monte Carlo-based
codes yield more reliable results than the deterministic codes
which use discrete ordinate methods or other methods, the MC
codes naturally consume more time since each particle is simu-
lated. In this study, one cost calculation takes more or less eleven
minutes to obtain less than a standard deviation of 0.07% when
Intel Xeon E5 Processors (12 × 4) with a core frequency of 3.10 GHz
are used. For over 2000 iterations, the necessary time for the full
computation would be at least two weeks.
Besides longer computational time originated from the nature
of the MC method, extensive geometry and material details used
in the reactor model also result in increasing the computational
time. Simple geometry and/or less material mean less time for
computing. For example, the reactor model used in this study cov-
ers all of the reactor in/out-core equipment as well as the tally
calculations are performed using a total of 250 isotopes for each
fuel material. It is important to note in here that, it is observed
from the previous study that using only important fission prod-
uct/actinide isotopes in the burnup computations changes the ex
results by around 200 pcm. It is clear that the magnitude of this
computational error would swamp the entire calculations if all of
Table 2
A summary of the results of the optimum CMs.
Optimization methods keff ex ($) ppfmax
SOGA:SUS 1.00867 ± 0.00068 1.173 1.4826 ± 0.0041
MOGA:NSGA-II 1.00880 ± 0.00068 1.195 1.4843 ± 0.0041
the fission products are not taken into account. Still, it is possible
to accelerate the computations by eliminating the isotopes at very
low amount.
Compared with the result of the fresh CM having the initial
excess reactivity of about 1.4 $, the maximum excess reactivity is
found to be 1.19 $ when the MOGA is used. It can be deduced that
shuffling the fuels may lead to an extension in the fuel cycle length
as high as the fuel cycle length of the fresh CM. It, however, needs a
separate burnup calculation to get the exact value of the fuel cycle
extension. For this purpose, for the best patterns provided in this
study, discharge burnup values of the fuel elements are going to be
presented as a separate study.
Concisely, when compared with the fresh core, it is observed
that the spectrum is remarkably affected by not only fissile content
but also amount of the thermal neutron absorber. Here, fissile ura-
nium tends to increase some part of the neutron energy spectrum
while the absorbers tend to decrease thermal flux. Furthermore, it
should be kept in mind that different core arrangement with the
same fuel elements means different neutron leakage characteristic
and, therefore, a different spectrum for the core.
5. Conclusion
In this study, a set of optimal CMs were searched by coupling
the GA and MC method. Optimization was performed for the prob-
lems: (i) maximization of the ex using SOGA when the burned fuel
elements with no fresh fuels are used, (ii) maximization of the ex
and minimization of ppfmax using MOGA when the burned fuel ele-
ments with the fresh fuels are used. Best CMs obtained using the
GA were compared with the fresh core from the viewpoint of core-
averaged neutron spectrum and change of the neutron group fluxes
with the radial distance. A summary of the results is presented in
Table 2.
There is no observed case that exceeds the safety limits (defined
by the safety report2 ) when the burned fuels with no fresh fuels are
used. However, when the mix of burned and fresh fuels are used, it is
2
The safety limits for the excess reactivity and the ppfmax are, in turn, 3 $ and
1.60.
94 M. Türkmen et al. / Nuclear Engineering and Design 295 (2015) 84–95
found that some generated CMs have higher ppfmax value than 1.50
(but not the limiting value) at the locations where the fresh fuels are
located. Therefore, the best CMs are selected within the generated
CMs in such a way that the excess reactivity and peaking factor
values are sufficiently below the safety limits. It is also understood
from the results that the SOGA method instead of the MOGA in the
optimization of the second case is sufficient in generating the CMs.
If the problems considered in this study are solved using the
classic search method, there would be about 4 × 1019 (a combina-
tion of 69 fuel elements using 38 different materials) possible CMs
to be searched when the burned fuels with no fresh fuels are used
for the shuffling. The number would be about 3 × 1019 (a combina-
tion of 69 fuel elements using 30 different materials) for the mix
of burned and fresh fuels. On the other hand, in this study, total
number of core maps used to find the best patterns for the SOGA
and MOGA are 2950 and 5100, respectively. In short, the GA meth-
ods used in this study provide worthwhile benefits to the users by
shortening the search time significantly.
To sum up, the optimal CM with the SOGA may extend the reac-
tor cycle life to some degree. However, with the fresh fuels, the
reactor cycle life can be extended to a large period by choosing a
proper CM, which ensures the safety limits, as well.
Appendix A. Details of fast non-dominated sorting method
- According to the method, the population is sorted according to
non-domination sets. For any solution of p and q in the main
population (P), the algorithm follows below steps:
- Set Sp =∅. If p dominates q, then insert solution q into Sp = Sp ∪ {q}
where Sp is the solution set which contains all the individuals
dominated by p.
 np = 0. If q dominates p, then increase the np by one
- Set
np = np + 1 where np is the number of solutions which dom-
inate p.
- When no solution (if np equals to zero) dominates p, the solution
p belongs to first front F1 , F1 = F1 ∪ {p}.
- Set the front counter to one (i = 1). While the front Fi is not empty
Fi =/ ∅, set Q =∅ where Q is used to store the solutions for the next
front Fi + 1 .
- For each solution p in the front Fi , and each solution q in the set
Sp , follow the below rule;
- Visit each member q in the set Sp and decrease nq by one,
nq = nq − 1.  
- When nq becomes zero nq = 0 , put the solution q in a separate
list Q, Q = Q ∪ {q}.
- Increase the front counter by one (i = i + 1) to find the members
of the next fronts.
- Now, identify the members of the current front Fi by setting
Fi = Q.
Appendix B. Details of crowding distance
After the non-dominated sorting step is completed, the density
calculation of the solutions around a particular solution needs to
be carried out. This is because the selection process is performed
over the rank and crowding distance values of the individuals. The
Crowding Distance stands on the idea calculating the Euclidian dis-
 
tance between each solution in a front according to m objectives.
For each front Fi containing the number of solutions l = Fi , the
algorithm can be expressed as below:
- Define the crowding-distance set I as I(i) = 0 for each solution, i.
- For each objective m, sort the solutions of Fi in the ascending
order. Assign each solution as x(i,m) in the sorted listed.
- Set the upper
  boundary
and lower  values as infinite distance,
Im x(1,m) = ∞ and Im x(l,m) = ∞.
   
- For i = 2,. . .,l − 1, calculate Im x(i,m) = Im x(i,m) +
    
max − I min

Im x(i+1,m) − Im x(i−1,m) /Im m .
Appendix C. Details of crowded-comparison operator
After the fast non-dominated sorting method and the crowding
distance calculation are performed, Crowded-Comparison opera-
tor is used to select the elite individuals for the offspring creation
by using the binary tournament selection technique. Crowded-
Comparison operator (≺) is defined as follows:
- Assume that each solution p in front Fi has its non-domination
rank (prank ) and crowding distance value (xdistance ).
- Prefer the solution with the lower (better) rank if two solutions
have different non-domination ranks. If the selected solutions are
located at the same front then, the solution that is located in a
lesser crowded region.
- If (prank < qrank ) then (p ≺n q).
- Or if (prank = qrank ) and (xdistance > ydistance ) then (p ≺n q).
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