About | ECITTT | Conference Programme | Abstracts (4.)
R-CODE BASIC - AN INTERPRETED LANGUAGE FOR
INTEGRATING ANALYTIC
SOLUTIONS INTO
A FRACTURE ASSESSMENT PACKAGE
Dr Mike Fox
Loc 94
British Energy Generation Ltd
Barnett Way
Barnwood
Gloucester
GL4 3RS
UK
Structural integrity assessments of nuclear power plant components involve consideration of many different effects, including fracture, plastic collapse, creep and fatigue. Assessments have to be made by suitably experienced engineers working within a framework of procedures, which codify the accumulated knowledge within the relevant areas.
Software support for this process must be provided in the form of packages that guide the engineer through the process and perform the necessary calculations. This support must aid, rather than substitute for, the engineer's judgement. It should provide for input reflecting the engineer's own data where this can be justified.
The R-Code package, used widely within British Energy and by outside organisations, provides this 'Open Architecture' through the provision of a 'Basic' type interpreted language. This allows the standard route through the fracture, fatigue or creep assessment to be followed with the substitution of analytic expressions derived outside the package if the user wishes. These expressions may be for Stress Intensity Factor or Limit Load solutions derived by, for example, finite element analysis, or may be for material properties such as creep strain rate derived by testing.
The syntax has been kept, as far as possible, consistent with that used in standard versions of the language available in spreadsheet packages. In this way engineers are able to provide data to the R-Codes system in a form with which they are generally familiar, and in many cases may simply import expressions with which they have been working in spreadsheet calculations into the fracture assessment package.