Author(s): Walter Frick, Philip Roberts

Linked Author(s): Walter Frick, Philip Roberts

Keywords: Diffuser; Hydraulics; Delphi parser; Public domain; Visual Plumes; PlumeHyd;

Abstract: Visual Plumes (VP), a Windows-based platform for plume models, embraces several distinct models: an analytical-empirical model (NRFIELD), Eulerian-integral-flux model (DKHw), and Lagrangian model (UM3). The advantages of empirical models, applied to problems that satisfy the similarity parameters of experimental work, are clear. Similarly, it is significant that UM3 can be shown to be equivalent, given the same entrainment and other assumptions and parameters, to Eulerian integral-flux models. These achievements have been gained against a backdrop of changing hardware, software, and operating systems (like the Disk Operating System, or DOS). For example, before Visual Plumes there was DOS Plumes.
When Visual Plumes was first introduced it preserved the model-platform concept by directly integrating UM3 and RSB (the NRFIELD predecessor) and by supporting external execution UDKw and NRFIELD). Recently, the successor to RSB, NRFIELD, was directly reintegrated. Users derive benefits from these developments in terms of selecting the most appropriate model and easily comparing the results of different approaches. However, the process is incomplete in that some individual programs, such as the ancillary internal diffuser hydraulics program PlumeHyd, have not been similarly updated and integrated. While VP is regularly updated, changes are done in a virtual machine: the XP machine. Porting VP software code to a Windows-10-compatible compiler has proven challenging as, at first, a suitable translator, or language parser, appeared to not exist. Striving to preserve VP’s public-domain status, this paper uses PlumeHyd development as a lens to clarify VP current public-domain status. The ultimate goal is to compile an integrated application for Windows 10, in the public domain. The search for a suitable Delphi parser promises to simplify and unify coding, facilitating future updates.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3850/38WC092019-5551

Year: 2019