Nuclear Binding Energy Calculation: An Interactive Web Platform Integrating Mass Defect and Liquid Drop Models

We have developed an interactive website designed to calculate nuclear binding energy employing two distinct methods: the mass defect approach and the liquid drop model. Accessible at http://Binding-Energy.github.io, the site features three main pages. The first is a search interface for locating specific isotopes. The second, a calculation page, computes and displays the binding energy of the chosen isotope. Lastly, a unique page displays when users input properties of a non-existent isotope. The process initiates when users input proton and neutron numbers (Z and N). The site executes a GET request to our custom API, incorporating these Z and N values. Our API sifts through International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) data to match these values, returning the isotope's JSON object if found. This data enables the website to perform and exhibit calculations. Conversely, if no matching isotope exists, the API signals this, and the site informs the user accordingly. Development of this website utilized two open-source JavaScript frameworks: React JS for the front end, integrating JavaScript, HTML, and CSS for a more streamlined web design, and Express JS for the back end, crafting RESTful APIs. Our Express JS implementation connects the front end to the IAEA's nuclear data, allowing us to preprocess the data, converting from CSV (comma-separated values) to JSON (JavaScript object notation) for better manageability with our extensive dataset (over 192,833 lines of data). This preprocessing also includes data filtering based on website requests.