NEA-0463 CRACKLE.

CRACKLE, Fast Reactor Pu Fuel Management

NAME OR DESIGNATION OF PROGRAM, COMPUTER, NATURE OF PHYSICAL PROBLEM SOLVED, METHOD OF SOLUTION, RESTRICTIONS ON THE COMPLEXITY OF THE PROBLEM, TYPICAL RUNNING TIME, FEATURES, RELATED AND AUXILIARY PROGRAMS, STATUS, REFERENCES, MACHINE REQUIREMENTS, LANGUAGE, OPERATING SYSTEM OR MONITOR UNDER WHICH PROGRAM IS EXECUTED, OTHER RESTRICTIONS, NAME AND ESTABLISHMENT OF AUTHOR, MATERIAL, CATEGORIES

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1. NAME OR DESIGNATION OF PROGRAM: CRACKLE.

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2. COMPUTERS

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Program name	Package id	Status	Status date
CRACKLE	NEA-0463/01	Tested	01-APR-1977

Machines used:

Package ID	Orig. computer	Test computer
NEA-0463/01	ICL 4/70	ICL 4/70

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3. NATURE OF PHYSICAL PROBLEM SOLVED

The code is designed to investigate the fuel management of large fast reactors by calculating the variation throughout reactor life of fuel rating, reactivity and plutonium content of every sub-assembly. The code works in up to six neutron energy groups with one hexagonal mesh area or six triangular mesh areas per sub-assembly.

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4. METHOD OF SOLUTION

The code works by executing successive burnup steps, each step simulating a few days of reactor life, during which flux and rating levels are considered not to change appreciably.
Between burnup steps refuelling operations may be carried out, i.e. specified sub-assemblies may be moved or changed.

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5. RESTRICTIONS ON THE COMPLEXITY OF THE PROBLEM

The code is limited to 6 groups, 11 burnable materials and 31x31 sub-assemblies.

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6. TYPICAL RUNNING TIME

Up to 3 minutes per burnup step for two groups and hexagonal geometry.
Up to 30 minutes per burnup step for six groups and triangular geometry.

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7. UNUSUAL FEATURES: UNUSUAL FEATURES OF THE PROGRAM

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8. RELATED AND AUXILIARY PROGRAMS

CRACKLE leans very heavily on the SNAP code for its preliminary data processing and flux calculation and many SNAP routines are used unaltered.
MARC.

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9. STATUS

Package ID	Status date	Status
NEA-0463/01	01-APR-1977	Tested at NEADB

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10. REFERENCES

- R.F. Burstall, M.A. Ball, and D.E.J. Thornton:
  'CRACKLE: A Complete Code for CFR Fuel Management Calculations.'
  TRG Report 2692(R).
- C.W.I. McCallien:
  'SNAP - A Two-Dimensional Neutron Diffusion Code.'
  TRG Report 1990(R).

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11. MACHINE REQUIREMENTS

190 kbytes of fast store for hexagonal geometry. 300 kbytes for triangular geometry. Less store would reduce the maximum problem size. 6 disc files and one tape file if restart facility is used.

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12. PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE(S) USED

Package ID	Computer language
NEA-0463/01	FORTRAN-IV

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13. OPERATING SYSTEM OR MONITOR UNDER WHICH PROGRAM IS EXECUTED: ICL DOS 7J.

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14. OTHER PROGRAMMING OR OPERATING INFORMATION OR RESTRICTIONS

ANY OTHER PROGRAMMING OR OPERATING INFORMATION OR RESTRICTIONS

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15. NAME AND ESTABLISHMENT OF AUTHOR

    D.E.J. Thornton, R.F. Burstall, M.A. Ball
    Reactor Neutronics Section
    Central Technical Services
    Risley
    United Kingdom

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16. MATERIAL AVAILABLE

NEA-0463/01

File name	File description	Records
NEA0463_01.001	CRACKLE SOURCE - FORTRAN IV EBCDIC	8377
NEA0463_01.002	COMMON FOR COPY INCLUSION	27
NEA0463_01.003	FORTRAN SUBROUTINE LIBRARY	1781
NEA0463_01.004	USERCODE SUBROUTINE LIBRARY	614
NEA0463_01.005	SAMPLE PROBLEM	84
NEA0463_01.006	OVERLAY AND RUN CARDS	53

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17. CATEGORIES

D. Depletion, Fuel Management, Cost Analysis, and Power Plant Economics

Keywords: burnup, fast reactors, fuel management, hexagonal lattices, reactivity.