Quickstart

This guide walks you through running your first CompFlowLab simulation (sod shock tube) in just a few minutes.

1. Prerequisites

   CompFlowLab can be run on both Windows and Linux. For Linux, using Anaconda is recommended. Python 3.9 or newer is required. Also, pip is needed for installing dependencies.

2. Install Dependencies

   All required libraries are listed in requirements.txt located in the misc_tools directory. They can be installed using pip.

   pip install -r misc_tools/requirements.txt
   
3. Run Your First Simulation

   Navigate to the root CompFlowLab directory. CompFlowLab requires two inputs: (1) the working directory where results will be saved (it is recommended to use the test case folder), and (2) the input .inp file. The following command runs a 1D shock tube simulation.

   python -O ./compflowlab.py ./examples/sod_shock_tube ./examples/sod_shock_tube/input_file.inp
   
4. Results

   CompFlowLab saves each solution as a separate binary NumPy .npy file in the working directory. Depending on the solver mode, CompFlowLab creates a results folder named after the mode; for the default full-order-model FOM mode, the folder name is FOM_results.

   For each snapshot, CompFlowLab writes two solution files: one labeled cons and one labeled prim. The cons files contain conservative variables such as mass, momentum, total energy, and species mass fractions, while the prim files contain primitive variables such as density, velocity, pressure, temperature and species mass fractions.