The 'Fuel Rod Analysis ToolBox': A general program for preparing the input of a fuel rod performance code

This paper gives an overview of the new 'Fuel Rod Analysis Toolbox', which is a program for the pre-processing of input data for fuel rod performance codes with a graphical user interface. It consists of three different modules that can handle several tasks such as data condensation, merging and synchronization. The 'Fuel Rod Analysis Toolbox' helps: to reduce the amount of input data, to simplify the setup of input files for complex data sets with input from experimental data as well as input resulting from neutronics or thermo-hydraulics codes, and to reduce computation time. These advantages are already evident for complex fuel rod analyses employing a conventional one-and-a-half-dimensional code but they become even more important for two- or three-dimensional approaches. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).