Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A 481 (2002) 760–764

NUCDATA: a useful database for NAA lab

M. Wasim, J.H. Zaidi*

Nuclear Chemistry Division, Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology, P.O. Nilore, Islamabad, Pakistan

Received 18 January 2001; accepted 10 May 2001

Abstract

The NUClear DATAbase (NUCDATA) has been developed and implemented specifically for Neutron Activation

Analysis research. The database was derived mainly from NUDAT. It provides access to nuclear data along with someprograms for quick calculations for 408 radioisotopes. The database contains gamma energies, intensities, half-lives andcross-section data. r 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: NAA database: Nuclear database

1. Introduction

Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) has be-come one of the most important and reliableanalytical techniques for the elemental assay ofvaried nature of samples. Its reliability hasintroduced a large number of data analysis soft-wares in the field. Among these, most of thesoftware packages offer a radionuclide library [1].Softwares giving an option for nuclide library donot necessarily have a complete and fully updatedlibrary, which sometimes make the need of a fullyupdated nuclide library for NAA work. Feelingthis need, IAEA offers a comprehensive databasenamed NUDAT, which is accessible throughWorld Wide Web [2,3] and is regularly updated.The decay and structure data in NUDAT isextracted from Evaluated Nuclear Structure DataFile (ENSDF) [4] and nuclear reaction data istaken from neutron cross-section compilations

[5,6]. New ENSDF search system (NESSY) wasdeveloped for PC under PARADOX DBMS, andit provided search option using query language [7].But most of the databases created by otherorganizations are general in nature and do notprovide specially written programs for dataanalysis [8,9] or they are designed according totheir national requirements like BANDRRI [10].Therefore, our NAA laboratory at PakistanInstitute of Nuclear Science and Technology(PINSTECH) decided to create a database espe-cially designed for NAA work. Keeping this needin mind, finally, a database named ‘‘NUCDATA’’was designed, created and implemented. Almost allof the nuclear data was taken from IAEA databaseNUDAT. Our database cannot be used directly forSpectrum Pulse Height Data (SPHD) analysis butwe have found it extremely useful for quick dataretrieval and for choosing the optimum conditions.The main objectives of the NUCDATA are:

1. To make nuclear data availability simple andefficient.

*Corresponding author.

E-mail address: jamshed@pinsech.org.pl (J.H. Zaidi).

0168-9002/02/$ - see front matter r 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

PII: S 0 1 6 8 - 9 0 0 2 ( 0 1 ) 0 1 3 6 4 - X

2. To optimize activities with respect to differentirradiation and decay schemes with the help ofprogram developed in the database.

3. To make queries for the unknown/interferingpeaks.

4. To get information about the probablesource(s) of radionuclide(s).

5. To keep data traceability to IAEA database.

2. Organization and contents of NUCDATA

NUCDATA has been built up around arelational database MS Access 97 under Windows98 operating system for PC users. The databasehas been normalized up to 3N level to get themaximum efficiency. As already stated, the data-base has been designed specifically for NeutronActivation Analysis, therefore, it contains datapertinent to NAA.The database contains all of the radionuclides

currently present in the IAEA NUDAT. Althoughthe database has been designed to assist in NAAresearch, it was decided to have a completedatabase to cover the interferences produced bynuclear reactions and daughter products. A list ofthe tables, which are currently available in thedatabase are:

* Abundance (for isotope abundance)* DetectorData (for detector’s data)* EfficiencyCal (for efficiency CALIBRATIONdata)

* Element (for atomic number and elementsymbol)

* Energy (for gamma energies with intensities)* EnergyCal (for energy calibration data)* FWHMCal (for FWHM calibration data)* HalfLife (the table also contains the productionmode)

* XsectionCaptureResIntegral (for capture cross-section with resonance integral)

* XsectionFission (cross section for (n, f) reactions)* XsectionN2N (cross section for (n, 2n)reactions)

* XsectionNA (cross section for (n, a) reactions)* XsectionNNDash (cross section for (n, !nn)reactions)

* XsectionNP (cross section for (n, p) reactions)

The contents and relationships between tablesare given in Fig. 1.All the tables are linked through atomic

number, which is the primary key in the‘‘Element’’ table and extra join was providedwhere mass number, decay mode or product stateis the joining parameter.

Fig. 1. Relationship diagram of the NUCDATA.

M. Wasim, J.H. Zaidi / Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A 481 (2002) 760–764 761

The tables DetectorData, EnergyCal,FWHMCal and EfficiencyCal contain the dataabout detector and its calibration coefficients(Energy, FWHM, and Efficiency). These tablesmust be updated for the new calibrationcoefficients of the laboratory using theNUCDATA.The ‘‘Element’’ table contains data of 112

elements, their symbols and atomic weight. TheEnergy table has a total of 9653 data entries forenergy lines, their intensities and correspondinguncertainties for 239 radionuclides. Capture cross-section data is available for 408 isotopes. Fissionneutron spectrum averaged cross-section dataother than capture cross section is taken fromJEF Report-14 [11].The main navigation window is shown in Fig. 2.The isotope data in the database has been

categorized, according to the production mode ofthe isotope. The production modes included areðn; gÞ; ðn;aÞ; ðn; 2nÞ; ðn; pÞ; fission products, naturalisotopes and cosmic products. The rest of theisotopes present in the data that are produced by

charged particle interaction have not been asso-ciated with any production mode, because theseisotopes are not of NAA interest.The data retrieval has been categorized into

three parts:

(a) Calculations: The ‘‘Calculations’’ offer theactivity calculation to optimize the irradiation,decay and counting conditions. The activitycalculation option helps to choose the best gammaenergies for better counting statistics. This optionalso incorporates the daughter–parent relation-ship, for all the available product states, in theactivity calculations. Another program in‘‘Calculations’’ is for getting a quick value ofefficiency at any given energy selecting thegeometry conditions. The activity calculationwindow is shown in Fig. 3.(b) Nuclide Data: The available nuclear data

that is provided through this category includes theelement abundance, half-life, nuclide gamma lineswith their intensities and cross-section data for allthe isotopes of the element selected.

Fig. 2. Main navigation board.

M. Wasim, J.H. Zaidi / Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A 481 (2002) 760–764762

(c) Queries: This option asks for energy of apeak and provides all the possible nuclidesassociated with that peak within the energytolerance provided by the user. This query notonly helps to identify a peak but also to find outthe interfering nuclides.Operation of the database is quite simple and

user friendly with self-explaining features. It wasour goal to do with minimum input from the user.Most of the data windows show data with the helpof a mouse click.All the data in the database can be printed

either using simple print command for tablesor printing in the form of report. One such reporthas been included in the database to get aformatted print of energy lines for a specificradionuclide.All the calculation codes were written using

Visual Basic for Application (VBA) and DataAccess Objects (DAO) using the Microsoft Access97 environment. Currently, the database size is2MB.

3. Conclusion and future plans

NUCDATA is under use not only by NAA labbut also by the gamma spectroscopy workers andnuclear data scientists due to its highly reliable

source of data that is IAEA NUDAT and itssimplicity. Although the current database isspecifically designed for NAA work, it has foundits place in the low-level counting labs and innuclear data research labs.The current version of the database is for PC

and is available on request. In future, the PCversion of this database will provide the graphicpresentation of the calibration curves.We are trying to make NUCDATA accessible

through Internet. The Internet version will be alittle changed; it will not contain the calibrationtables and the calibration data. The main naviga-tion window will also contain some other pro-grams involving the nuclear reactions other thanthe (n; g) reactions.

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Fig. 3. Activity calculation window.

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