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U.S. Department of Energy
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LIFE3; mixed-oxide fuel element performance. [IBM370; CDC7600; FORTRAN IV]

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:6343078
The LIFE3 computer code was developed to calculate the thermal and mechanical response of mixed-oxide fuel elements in a fast-reactor environment. It incorporates a one-dimensional, steady-state heat-transfer analysis and a finite-strain-theory structural analysis based on generalized plane strain and the method of successive elastic solutions. An incremental approach is used so that temperatures, stresses, and strains can be calculated during any specified history of reactor power cycling. Fuel-cladding and sodium-cladding chemical attack is treated by a cladding wastage model. Up to six axial sections are allowed to account for axial variations in power and coolant temperature. Fuel restructuring; migration of fabricated and swelling porosities; fuel and cladding thermal expansion, elasticity, swelling, and creep; fission-gas release; and fuel cracking, crack healing, and hot pressing are included in the analysis. LIFE3 is the reference ERDA code for calculating the performance of fast breeder reactor fuel elements under normal operating conditions, including power cycling.IBM370;CDC7600; FORTRAN IV; OS/370 (IBM370), SCOPE 2.1 (CDC7600); 325K bytes of memory (IBM370/195) and 125,000 (octal) words (CDC7600) with one scratch file and one file for restart information, in addition to the system input and output units.
Research Organization:
Argonne National Lab., IL (USA)
OSTI ID:
6343078
Report Number(s):
ANL/NESC-460R; ON: DE83048460
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English