Intelligent soft computing in nuclear engineering in Brazil

Nuclear reactor design and operation often involve important human cognitio n and decisions. Design optimization, transient diagnosis and core reload o ptimization, are examples of complex tasks faced during a nuclear reactor d esign or operation. In order to handle such kind of tasks expert knowledge is required. Due to the complexity involved in the cognition and decisions to be taken, computerized systems have been intensely explored in order to aid design and operation. Following hardware advances, soft computing has b een improved and, nowadays, intelligent technologies, such as evolutionary programming, neural networks, expert systems and fuzzy systems are being us ed to support design and operation. This work presents applications of Inte lligent Soft Computing (ISC) to three important cognition problems which ar e: the nuclear reactor design, the core reload optimization and transient d iagnosis. (C) 1999 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.