MARLA

MARLA is the Studsvik software product for the automated design and analysis of a fuel shuffle. The software also automatically chooses fuel bundles to be loaded into dry storage casks to provide space in the storage pools to meet future storage needs, and allows engineers to manage the spent fuel pool between outages. MARLA performs all tasks related to planning the fuel shuffle, including the optimization of the fuel movement schedule, a complete shutdown margin analysis of every intermediate core configurations using the licensing-grade SIMULATE3 advanced nodal code, and generation of the official fuel movement checklist used by the crane operators during core alterations. Shutdown margin analysis is interactive with the shuffle design and takes place during the planning stage - not after the sequence has been planned. This paper provides an overview of the various features of the software.

MARLA is the Studsvik software for the automated design and analysis of a BWR fuel shuffle. MARLA performs all tasks related to planning the fuel shuffle, including: design and optimization of the fuel movement schedule; SIMULATE3 analysis of core shutdown margin (SDM); and generation of the Fuel Movement Checklist. Every core configuration created by the shuffle plan is analyzed fully for SDM using the standard 3-D, 2-group solution in SIMULATE3. The SDM analysis is interactive with the shuffle design and takes place each time MARLA proposes a fuel move - i.e., during the planning stage, not after the sequence has been planned. MARLA provides the means to manage all fuel pools and nuclear components on site, as well as automate the choice of bundles to be loaded into dry storage casks to meet future storage needs. This paper describes some of the more important features of the code.