8.23. In engineering design, there is often the desire not only to use the systems concept to develop a feasible solution to a given problem, but

to use various formal methods to find an optimum or best solution. To accomplish this, the various parameters controlling the system are adjusted to yield “behavior” that is best in relation to a prescribed so-called “figure of merit” or design goal.

8.24. Application of various formal optimization approaches to nuclear engineering problems, particularly to those in fuel management, has at­tracted the attention of researchers for many years [3]. However, since most methods require extensive iteration by computer, approximations in modeling the core in fuel reloading problems (§10.40) have been necessary to maintain a practical level of calculation effort. Therefore, the resulting uncertainty in the results has limited commercial interest in applying ex­isting methods. This picture could change as improved core modeling meth­ods are developed utilizing newer computers, particularly those based on parallel processing. Separate from the fuel reloading problem, the optimum design of the total plant to provide energy at minimum cost has been standard practice for many years. In the case of the plant, the number of significant parameters is modest compared with the reload core. Thus, computer modeling of the plant design problem is easily managed.