Development of easy-to-use interface for nuclear transmutation computing, VCINDER code

The CINDER code has about 60 years of development history, and is thus one of the world's best transmutation computing codes to date. Unfortunately, it is complex and cumbersome to use. Preparing auxiliary input files for activation computation from MCNPX output and executing them using Perl script (activation script) is the first difficulty, and separation of gamma source computing script (gamma script), which analyzes the spectra files produced by CINDER code and creates source definition format for MCNPX code, is the second difficulty. In addition, for highly nonlinear problems, multiple human interventions may increase the possibility of errors. Postprocessing such as making plots with large text outputs is also time consuming. One way to improve these limitations is to make a graphical user interface wrapper that includes all codes, such as MCNPX and CINDER, and all scripts with a visual C#.NET tool. The graphical user interface merges all the codes and provides easy postprocessing of graphics data and Microsoft office tools, such as Excel sheets, which make the CINDER code easy to use. This study describes the VCINDER code (with visual C#.NET) and gives a typical application example.