3.1 Code Engineering (Y. Sommerer)
The rising importance of code engineering aspects was expressed in 2000
through the opening of an engineer position, reflecting the need to provide
a complex software tool, that is reliable and fast, robust and user-friendly
(where all conditions have to be seen in the context of a research code).
Although in 2001 a preliminary prototype version of a two-phase flow module
in AVBP was written, no spectacular modifications were incorporated into the
releases of AVBP 4.4, 4.5, 4.6 and 4.7. Both two-phase flow capabilities
(AVBP TFP) and also multiple-species features (AVBP 5.0) constitute the next
major release scheduled in 2002.
The ``QPF - Quality Program'' for the verification and validation of AVBP
has been pursued. This enables to continuously ensure the solution quality
of the solver. The numerical methods and physical models are validated on
academic test cases before their application to complex geometries.
The current version of AVBP is still built upon the parallel library COUPL
which was developed initially in collaboration with the Oxford University
Computing Laboratory (OUCL). This generic library of subroutines aims to free
the non-specialist user from the need to consider aspects of high performance
computing such as data partitioning or message passing.
3.1.1 Pre- and postprocessing tool and documentation
(A. Kaufmann, T. Schönfeld,
Y. Sommerer)
In 2000 an important action was initiated to further improve and harmonize
the pre- and postprocessing tools around AVBP. These tools are essential for
the exploitation of time-dependent flows and allow to post-processes the
solution files: statistics of unsteady turbulence (LES), recording and flow
tracing at selected points, evaluation of integral mass flux values across
in- and outlet boundaries, etc. The toolbox has been partially rewritten in
Fortran90 language, which renders the routines independent from the COUPL
library and significantly increases their portability.
The documentation has followed the general trend away from paper support
towards Internet help menus: the previous ``AVBP User's Manual'' has become
on-line and the resulting ``AVBP Help Desk'' contains a summary of various
help menus, bug reports, news infos, FAQs and a flow chart. In addition, the
``AVBP HandBook'' , that represents a collection of individual technical
notes, has been updated and is available in classical paper form which can be
downloaded as pdf-File.
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