ENDF/B-VIII data library from SCALE6.3 beta

[Hafssa ZIANI]

 

     Hello,

           I would like to know if I can use the Data from the SCALE 6.3 beta version 11 with a previous version " SCALE6.2.3 ". it works with the ENDF/B-VII.1 data library,

           but the SCALE6.2.3 doesn't recognize the new data library " ENDF/B-VIII".

   Thank you,
   Best regards

[Andrew Holcomb]

Hi Hafssa,

In short: the 6.2 data is compatible with the 6.3 beta software, but not all of the 6.3 beta data is backwards compatible with the 6.2 software release. 

This is because we decided to start making incremental progress with the SCALE data to move away from proprietary formats (you may have noticed that the ENDF-8 CE data are provided in HDF5 format, rather than current proprietary binary format. Similarly, to make MG library read times faster and eliminate initial memory burden, some of the SCALE 6.3 MG data have been split over multiple files. Since SCALE 6.2 doesn't know how to read the HDF5 format or the split-up MG format, it will not be able to read in the data.

Unfortunately, I don't have a complete list of which 6.3 beta data is incompatible with the 6.2 software, but hopefully this has given you enough context to glean what will and will not work.

Best,

Andrew Holcomb

SCALE Nuclear Data Product Owner

[Jeffrey Ryman]

Andrew,

By proprietary, do you mean the AMPX library format as described in the AMPX-6 manual (including the updates from the old format that used "magic words")?

I don't use SCALE much in retirement, but I have a professional interest as I used to look after some of the data (mainly ORIGEN-related) many years ago and wrote some software to extract various ENDF/B data.

Best regards,

Jeff Ryman

[Hafssa ZIANI]

 Hi Andrew,

Thank you for this explanation.
So, as long as I use the SCALE6.2, the only way to get the ENDF/B-VIII data library is to create one by using the AMPX code. But, if there are two different formats to generate the CE-ENDF data library: HDF5 format and proprietary binary format, which one of these formats will be generated through the AMPX code?

   Thank you again,
   Best regards

[Andrew Holcomb]

Hey Jeff,

Yes, I was referring to the AMPX library format, sorry for the confusion.

Thanks,

Andrew

[Andrew Holcomb]

Hi Hafssa,

You can use the latest beta distribution of AMPX (which is included with the SCALE beta releases) to process the ENDF-8 library. By default, you will still get the old AMPX library format, which will be backwards compatible with SCALE 6.2.3. The SCALE 6.2 series of AMPX can NOT process some of the data files in the ENDF-8 distribution due to a change introduced in the ENDF format shortly before it was released.

Thanks,

Andrew