From SPHYSICS

Revision as of 15:38, 8 August 2007

Welcome to the SPHYSICS FAQ Page. If you do not find the answer to the question you were looking for, please try the other Forum pages:

1. What is SPHYSICS and what can it do?
2. Where can I download SPHYSICS?
3. Who wrote SPHYSICS?
4. What platforms does SPHYSICS run on?
5. How do I run SPHYSICS on windows?
6. How do I run SPHYSICS on Linux
7. How do I visualize the results?
8. For which cases has SPHYSICS been validated?
9. What if I find a bug in the code?
10. How can I contribute to the development of SPHYSICS?

What is SPHYSICS and what can it do?

SPHYSICS is a Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) code written in fortran for the simulation of potentially violent free-surface hydrodynamics. For release version 1.0, the SPHYSICS code can simulate various phenomena including wave breaking, dam breaks, sloshing, sliding objects, wave impact on a structure, etc. More information on the technical capabilities can be found on the SPHYSICS home page.

Where can I download SPHYSICS?

Please see the Downloads Page.

Who wrote SPHYSICS?

SPHYSICS was written by a number of contributors from universities from around the world. For a list of code authors please see the Contributors page. The code took several years to develop, apply to test cases and improve.

What platforms does SPHYSICS run on?

The SPHYSICS source code is downloadable from the main Downloads page. Therefore, the code can run on any operating system or platform where you have a fortran compiler. (please see the following webpage for fortran compilers available on the internet). During development every effort has been made to ensure that the SPHYSICS code is as portable as possible. The code has been tested on the following operating systems and compilers:

Windows: Compaq Visual Fortran

Linux: GPL gfortran compiler, Intel fortran compiler

Mac: GPL gfortran

How do I run SPHYSICS on windows?

This depends whether you are using an Intergrated Development Environment (IDE). Generally, your compiler will produce SPHYSICS.exe which are then run from the command line:

SPHYSICS.exe

The code includes special subroutines to generate the appropriate compilation make files which can be adjusted for other compilers and operating environments. The code has been developed to run on Windows using Compaq Visual Fortran.

How do I run SPHYSICS on Linux

The SPHYSICS code comes with batch files which are used to compile the source code and then run the codes. For example, for Case1 which is supplied with the code (under run_directory), at the command prompt, type:

./Test1.bat

How do I visualize the results?

Some basic visualisation tools are included with the source code. The results can be visualized either with Matlab or ParaView. In order to use ParaView, the raw data files require some processing which at present is done using some Matlab code. This will be converted to fortran source code soon.

For which cases has SPHYSICS been validated?

The code has been validated for a number of different test cases including dam breaks, waves hitting structures, breaking waves at beaches, Poiseuille flow, Couette flow. Interested readers are referred to the following publications for more detailed information Publication list.

What if I find a bug in the code?

A good rule of thumb is that in a commerical code there is a bug every 100 lines of code. If you find a bug in the SPHYSICS code, please let the developers know using the Forum pages (DO NOT email the developers directly!)

How can I contribute to the development of SPHYSICS?

For starters you can buy the main developers a drink of beer at the next conference or workshop. Failing that, you can post any new subroutines that you want to share with other users to the Forum pages. Periodically the core developers of SPHYSICS will meet and discuss future developments and directions of SPHYSICS. If your new subroutines are considered to be an invaluable addition to the code, they will be considered for inclusion in the next release version.