2. Depletion Chain – chain.xml¶
A depletion chain file has a <depletion_chain> root element with one or more
<nuclide> child elements. The decay, reaction, and fission product data for
each nuclide appears as child elements of <nuclide>.
2.1. <nuclide> Element¶
The <nuclide> element contains information on the decay modes, reactions,
and fission product yields for a given nuclide in the depletion chain. This
element may have the following attributes:
- name
Name of the nuclide
- half_life
Half-life of the nuclide in [s]
- decay_modes
Number of decay modes present
- decay_energy
Decay energy released in [eV]
- reactions
Number of reactions present
For each decay mode, a <decay> Element appears as a child of
<nuclide>. For each reaction present, a <reaction> Element appears as
a child of <nuclide>. If the nuclide is fissionable, a <neutron_fission_yields> Element
appears as well.
2.2. <decay> Element¶
The <decay> element represents a single decay mode and has the following
attributes:
- type
The type of the decay, e.g. ‘ec/beta+’
- target
The daughter nuclide produced from the decay
- branching_ratio
The branching ratio for this decay mode
2.3. <reaction> Element¶
The <reaction> element represents a single transmutation reaction. This
element has the following attributes:
- type
The type of the reaction, e.g., ‘(n,gamma)’
- Q
The Q value of the reaction in [eV]
- target
The nuclide produced in the reaction (absent if the type is ‘fission’)
- branching_ratio
The branching ratio for the reaction
2.4. <neutron_fission_yields> Element¶
The <neutron_fission_yields> element provides yields of fission products for
fissionable nuclides. Normally, it has the follow sub-elements:
- energies
Energies in [eV] at which yields for products are tabulated
- fission_yields
Fission product yields for a single energy point. This element itself has a number of attributes/sub-elements:
- energy
Energy in [eV] at which yields are tabulated
- products
Names of fission products
- data
Independent yields for each fission product
In the event that a nuclide doesn’t have any known fission product yields, it is possible to have that nuclide borrow yields from another nuclide by indicating the other nuclide in a single parent attribute. For example:
<neutron_fission_yields parent="U235"/>