Reading An ENDF Tape



The keys to finding your way around on an ENDF tape are the MAT, MF, and MT numbers. On the ASCII versions of ENDF-format files, they appear in columns 67 to 75 of every "card" (we also use the term "card" out of respect for the history of computing--besides, some of us remember them real well!). The Fortran notation is I4,I2,I3. The MT value is zero to indicate the end of a section (SEND record), the MF value is zero to indicate the end of a file (FEND record), and the MAT number is zero to indicate the end of a material (MEND record). There is a special "tape ID" record at the beginning with the MAT value equal to the tape number, and a special tape-end record (TEND) with MAT=-1 at the end of the tape.

Here is an example of the skeletal structure for a typical ENDF tape (the 5-digit sequence numbers in columns 76 to 80 have been omitted for clarity):

     tape id                                    7777 0  0
     start of MF1, MT451 (description)          1111 1451
       ...
     SEND record                                1111 1  0
     FEND record                                1111 0  0
     start of MF2, MT151 (resonances)           1111 2151
      ...
     SEND record                                1111 2  0
     FEND record                                1111 0  0
     start of MF3, MT1 (total cross section)    1111 3  1
       ...
     SEND record                                1111 3  0
     start of MF3, MT2 (elastic cross section)  1111 3  2
       ...
     FEND record                                1111 0  0
     MEND record                                   0 0  0
     TEND record                                  -1 0  0
To find samples of this kind of structure, look at the "raw" ENDF files from ENDF/B-VII, JEF-3.0, or JENDL-3.3.

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15 December 2012 T-2 Nuclear Information Service ryxm@lanl.gov