Patent Number: 
Section: claims

1. A method of evaluating pellet-cladding interaction in a core of a nuclear reactor, said nuclear reactor core having a reactor protection system, and including a plurality of elongated fuel rods, said fuel rods each including a cladding tube surrounding a plurality of nuclear fuel pellets with a gap being defined between said nuclear fuel pellets and said cladding tube, said reactor protection system defining a number of operational limits for a plurality of parameters of said core, said operational limits being based, at least in part, upon a predetermined set of technical specifications for said core, said method comprising the steps of:selecting a number of said parameters of said core to be analyzed, including xenon-135 distribution in said core;evaluating the selected parameters at a plurality of statepoints, each of said statepoints corresponding to a predetermined point in time for a predetermined core condition, wherein a set of said statepoints defines a history point, said history point being representative of the operational history of one or more of said fuel rods of said core;generating a model of an operating space of said core based, at least in part, upon said statepoints and plotting said model of said operating space on a display;selecting a loci of statepoints from said statepoints of said model and subjecting said loci of statepoints to a predetermined simulated transient, wherein each of said statepoints of said loci of statepoints falls within the operational limits of said reactor protection system, said loci of statepoints defining a subset of said statepoints within said operating space of said core, the selection of said loci of statepoints being based, at least in part, upon one or more said history point;evaluating said loci of statepoints for pellet-cladding interaction in response to said simulated transient, prior to operation of said nuclear reactor;if pellet-cladding interaction is predicted, then rearranging said fuel rods or adjusting the operational limits of said reactor protection system; andif pellet-cladding interaction is not predicted, then accepting the arrangement of said fuel rods for safe operation in said core. 2. The method of claim 1 further comprising subjecting as said transient, a transient which is representative of a Condition II event. 3. The method of claim 1 further comprising selecting as said parameters, at least one parameter selected from the group consisting of time-in-cycle, xenon distribution, control rod position, and power level. 4. The method of claim 3 further comprising:establishing a set of allowable core operating guidelines in order to provide for the safe operation of said core and to avoid pellet-cladding interaction,selecting a number of fuel rods of said core, the selected fuel rods having a controlling effect on the limits of said operating space, andevaluating the selected fuel rods for compliance with said guidelines. 5. The method of claim 3 further comprising:evaluating the xenon distribution in said core as a function of a delta xenon parameter and a xenon mid parameter,wherein the delta xenon parameter comprises the amount of xenon distributed in the top of said core minus the average amount of xenon in the bottom of said core, andwherein the xenon mid parameter comprises the average distribution of xenon in the middle third of said core over the average xenon distribution of the entire core. 6. The method of claim 1 wherein each said history point comprises at least one history parameter selected from the group consisting of local burnup, local power level, local isotopic concentrations of select nuclei, local effective cold gap, and maximum allowed power; and wherein said at least one history parameter is evaluated for at least one power history for each of said fuel rods, in order to create historical data for each of said fuel rods within said core. 7. The method of claim 6 further comprising:providing a nuclear analysis code,incorporating said historical data into said nuclear analysis code, andemploying said nuclear analysis code to evaluate said core over a fuel cycle under a number of different core operating scenarios, said core operating scenarios being selected from the group consisting of base load operation at 100% power, operation at reduced power, and load follow operation wherein the core power level changes frequently. 8. The method of claim 7 further comprising:comparing the evaluation of said loci of statepoints to said historical data, andaccepting or rejecting said fuel rods for safe operation in said core. 9. The method of claim 1 further comprising employing three-dimensional nuclear core power distribution analysis in order to analyze the potential for pellet-cladding interaction in said fuel rods. 10. The method of claim 1 further comprising:providing as said statepoints, statepoints associated with normal operation of said core, and statepoints associated with said Condition II event, andmodeling and analyzing said fuel rods of said core using a reduced number of said normal operation statepoints and said Condition II statepoints in order to accurately evaluate said fuel rods of said core for pellet-cladding interaction without requiring all of said statepoints for all of said fuel rods of said core to be analyzed individually.