[mcstas-users] Obsolete components

[Peter Kjær Willendrup]

Dear Alexandre,


On 3 Oct 2023, at 23.32, Alexandre Pinho Dos Santos Souza <Alexandre.PinhoDosSantosSouza at inl.gov> wrote:

My name is Alexandre Pinho, and I have been a McStas user since 2018. I'd like to say that I was able to research and make good work using McStas. It's been a very useful tool; however, I'd like to ask you about those components that became obsolete during the current versions.

Good to hear that, and sure I can elaborate on the reasons for obsoletion.

Mainly those that import sources from MCNP, i.e., PTRAC and RSSA files with components Virtual_mcnp_input and Virtual_mcnp_ss_input, <https://mcstas.org/download/components/3.4/obsolete/Virtual_mcnp_input.html> respectively. Why are they obsolete in those new versions?

As you outline, a number of import mechanisms from MCNP existed in the past more precisely

1) Originally the Virtual_mcnp_input to function with PTRAC
2) Virtual_mcnp_ss_input to function via “source surface files”, better than the PTRAC option but with the caveat of depending on Fortran snippets.

3) We finally implemented the “successor” MCPL_input that is based on https://mctools.github.io/mcpl/, developed by Thomas Kittelmann at ESS.

MCPL files can be generated from MCNP SSW files, and McStas comes bundled with the tool ssw2mcpl that can do the conversion for you.

One of the main advantages of using MCPL is that you keep better track of the information flow (e.g. the original deck can be embedded and may contain info on the NPS used) and there are command-line tools to both filter on the content of an MCPL file (e.g. “neutrons only and throw away energies above 1eV) and merge multiple MCPL files to one input for McStas.

In addition, I have tried to download and use version 2.5, but it's not functioning. Is part of the installation package unavailable or something? Thanks a lot for your attention!

If you need a 2.x version these days, please go for 2.7.2 - and I further recommend migrating to 3.x.


Best,
Peter Willendrup


Peter Kjær Willendrup
Forskningsingeniør, Specialkonsulent

DTU Physics
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Technical University of Denmark


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