Giacomo Grasso

In order to build up a consistent MCNP simulation of a nuclear reactor, the cross section libraries to be used within must be reprocessed from the original tapes for the inclusion of the thermic effect of doppler broadening of the resonances at the proper working temperatures. The processing of such libraries is done by making use of the NJoy code. The execution of such code for each isotope cross section library tape is characterized by providing to the latter a proper input file containing all the parameters concerning the isotope informations and the execution guidelines. Such a procedure must be recursively repeated for each isotope, recompiling the input file with the new parameters, resulting in a long and repetitive job.

The njoyinputmaker.sh script is intended to provide an automatic procedure to iteratively thermically process cross section libraries with NJoy, for use in MCNP. The script provides both command line and (from the present version) dialog based interfaces to guide the user to the definition of a small set of necessar parameters for the correct execution of the NJoy program, easing the user job by automatically retrieving all the missing informations characterizing the different isotopes whose cross section libraries must be processed.

The processed input libraries are then stored in an only comprehensive library file in ENDF format and a list of corresponding entries for the xsdir file, ready to be used in MCNP simulations.

An exhaustive documentation of the njoyinputmaker.sh script, the complete user reference guide, can be found in the NJoyInputMaker documents page.

An introductory preview of the dialog-based execution of the njoyinputmaker.sh script can also be found in the NJoyInputMaker screenshots page.

The present version of the njoyinputmaker.sh script is 3.0. The third version refers to the introduction of the dialog-based interface which joins the standard command line mode. A self-training configuration procedure is going to be included in the future versions of the script, in order to further ease the execution initial set up phase to the user.

The present version of the njoyinputmaker.sh script, together with the installation instructions and a short reference guide can be retrieved from the apposite download page. The dialog interface depends on either the dialog or the whiptail packages, which are not distributed together with the script and must be eventually installed apart. This tool is intended as free software, distributed under the GNU Public Licence v.3.