Development of a new nuclide generation and depletion code using a topological solver based on graph theory

The problem of calculating the amounts of a coupled nuclide system varying with time especially when exposed to a neutron flux is a well-known problem and has been addressed by a number of computer codes. These codes cover a broad spectrum of applications, are based on comprehensive validation work and are therefore justifiably renowned among their users. However, due to their long development history, they are lacking a modern interface, which impedes a fast and robust internal coupling to other codes applied in the field of nuclear reactor physics. Therefore a project has been initiated to develop a new object-oriented nuclide transmutation code. It comprises an innovative solver based on graph theory, which exploits the topology of nuclide chains and therefore speeds up the calculation scheme. Highest priority has been given to the existence of a generic software interface well as an easy handling by making use of XML files for the user input. In this paper we report on the status of the code development and present first benchmark results, which prove the applicability of the selected approach.