[_n_b_]

Yes, essentially this happens. PWRs and BWRs have operating limits on their power shape derived from doing those kinds of analyses.

They’re tend do be more physical than “arbitrarily xenon-poisoned” but represent a variety of extreme and nominal states to form an operating envelope, and then healthy margins are applied on top of that.

[ahartmetz]

I'm not sure if that expression is known outside of physics, so: "physical" here means "conforming to, possible under the laws of physics"