HDF5 Nuclear Data

[Paul Romano]

Hi devs,

Some of you may have noticed that the pyapi-data branch was just merged, so we are now officially using HDF5 cross section data rather than ACE data. As such, the next time you pull from develop, you will need to generate/download a new cross section library and adjust your OPENMC_CROSS_SECTIONS environment variable (or <cross_sections> element). Your options are:

• Download NNDC data that has been pre-generated. This is what Travis now uses for testing.
• Generate a library using scripts/openmc-ace-to-hdf5. This script is quite handy and can generate a library for you starting with either a list of ACE files, an old-style cross_sections.xml, an MCNP-style xsdir, or a Serpent-style xsdata.

I know this may cause pain for some of you, so please let me know if you're having any trouble and I'm happy to do some hand-holding.

Thanks,

Paul