Simulation of long-term fuelling operations for the ACR-1000™

The Advanced CANDU Reactor™¹ (ACR-1000™) features on-power refuelling, retaining a characteristic design feature from the traditional CANDU®² reactor. To confirm or predict important design parameters it is necessary to perform simulations of fuelling representative of station operation. Long-term fuelling simulations have traditionally been called 'core-follow' simulations and are used to predict or confirm parameters such as channel power, bundle power, channel power peaking factor (CPPF) and burnup. To perform a core-follow simulation for a reactor fuelled during operation (on-power) a sustainable fuelling strategy must first be developed. To this end, the methodology used to perform the core-follow simulations, the methodology used to develop channel fuelling selection criteria, and some supporting results are detailed in this paper.