Material strings can become unruly.

[MicahGale]

When you print a material a list of all its elements are included. For depleted fuel this can become ... very unruly. Should implement a numpy style snip that cuts out a lot of the middle bits.

[MicahGale]

In addition the elements should be sorted by composition. It's hard for anyone but a materials scientist to see that: 'magnesium', 'aluminum', 'silicon', 'chromium', 'manganese', 'iron', 'copper', 'zinc', 'tin' is aluminum-6061.

[MicahGale]

I keep coming back: and really wanting the composition sorting.

[SterlingButters]

In addition the elements should be sorted by composition. It's hard for anyone but a materials scientist to see that: 'magnesium', 'aluminum', 'silicon', 'chromium', 'manganese', 'iron', 'copper', 'zinc', 'tin' is aluminum-6061.

Should again consider #344 (comment) for material labeling (not necessarily the sorting)

[MicahGale]

To clarify this isn't about writing to file this is just for printing when examining a material:

print(material)

[SterlingButters]

I'm a little surprised that MCNP doesn't support named materials - or do they? If, so, could just be on the user to do so. If not, you could still leverage the JSONification for this (imo).

[MicahGale]

Do you mean by being able to label m1 as water or being able to define a material as being water?

[SterlingButters]

@MicahGale I feel like either would resolve the issue right? But AFAICT, there isn't any native way to do this in MCNP.

[MicahGale]

Yes you are right, neither of these features is supported by MCNP natively, much to everyone's chagrin.

So next steps on your idea: I think all of these would be a separate issue:

1. Extend the scope of Add named Cells #76.
2. Add common composition data (at least elemental) data to simplify generating new materials. I am warry of doing this as we would then be responsible for a rather large data set. Though people can't sue us over getting it wrong, they can still complain loudly.

[SterlingButters]

2. Add common composition data (at least elemental) data to simplify generating new materials. I am warry of doing this as we would then be responsible for a rather large data set. Though people can't sue us over getting it wrong, they can still complain loudly.

Honestly, I don't think it will be long before people request the PNNL Material Compendium anyhow