Thirty UESFs, i.e.Unique or Especially Strong Features of PHOENICS

See also PHOENICS 'Firsts'

1. Longest track record: launched 1981
2. Most extensive world-wide use: many thousands of users.
3. Widest range of activatable physical models, with validation:

16 turbulence; 4 radiation; 9 two-phase; many chemical-kinetic

4. Multi-phase flows, including:
• dispersed fluids ( IPSA, ASLP):
• sharply-separated fluids ( VOF, HOL, surface tracking);
• particle tracking (GENTRA)
5. LVEL model for turbulence in congested domains
6. IMMERSOL model for radiation in congested domains
7. MULTI-FLUID model for turbulent chemical reaction
8. Simultaneous STRESSES-IN-SOLIDS computation
9. Widest range of algorithms & schemes for convection-diffusion:
• staggered-grid;
• 3 co-located;
• 15 "higher-order" schemes
10. Widest range of solvers:
• Stone; conjugate-gradient; block-correction
11. Fine-grid embedding, including triangles & pyramids (X-cell)
12. GCV (and 3 other formulations) for body-fitted coordinates
13. Sliding and multi-block grids
14. Parabolic option for boundary layers, jets, long ducts
15. Widest range of hardware platforms & operating systems:
• UNIX, VMS, DOS, WIN95, WIN-NT,
• PVM/MPI for parallel machines
16. Remote super-computing, via Internet, metered & QA'd
17. Most flexible pricing arrangements: by module, time, user type
18. Lowest price, whatever the arrangement
19. Availability as Shareware (i.e. freely copiable, with compiler)
20. Virtual Reality interface, for mouse-and-click devotees
21. High-level PHOENICS Input Language (ie PIL), for CFD cognoscenti
22. Programmability, for Fortran-coding specialists ( > 50% open)
23. PLANT, which does Fortran coding automatically even in Shareware
24. ASAP, now greatly improved by addition of PARSOL, for fitting CAD-described objects into Cartesian grids
25. GENIE, general interface to 3rd-party grid-generation packages
26. Own (PHOTON & VR) & links to 3rd-party graphics-output packages
27. Easy customisability, creating special-purpose versions for:-
• electronics cooling, HOTBOX;
• chemical-vapour deposition, CVD;
• heating, ventilating and smoke-movement in buildings, FLAIR;
• flow around buildings and marine structures, FABULOUS;
• oil spills in rivers and coastal waters, ROSA;
• performance of cooling towers, TACT;
• gas leaks, explosions, blast, missiles, fire-spread, EXPLOITS;
• coal-fired and other furnaces, COFFUS;
• paddle-stirred reactors, PASTOR.
28. Regular publication of the PHOENICS Journal; 4 per year.
29. On-line documentation: help, encyclopaedia, applications album, lecture course, application album with users' contributions
30. Unlimited free support for maintained users.

UESF 1: This is just a matter of history.

 UESF 2: This results partly from the early start of PHOENICS, and partly from the wide spread of the freely-copied Shareware versions (see UESF 19).

 UESF 3: This results from both history and policy. CHAM has always sought to make it easy for itself and its users to bring in new models.

 UESF 4: As for UESF 3. See also section 5.4 of this document.

 UESF 5: LVEL was invented in response to practical need. There is no point in advocating academically-favoured models if the grid fineness which they need cannot be afforded. The unique wall-distance calculator used by LVEL has other uses, eg. for IMMERSOL. See the SFT example in section 5.4.1 of this report. Also References 1, 4 & 11.

 UESF 6: IMMERSOL is of the same kind as LVEL: it is economical enough to be used in practice; it is accurate in simple circumstances; and it is never far wrong in complex ones.

 UESF 7: MFM is believed by the present author to represent an important breakthrough in turbulence modelling, which has especial value when:-

- chemical reactions are significant; or

- centrifugal or gravitational forces interact with density fluctuations.

UESF 8: It is another unique feature of PHOENICS which appears likely to become popular because it satisfies a long-felt need.

 UESF 9: Each of the schemes has its enthusiasts and detractors. What is convenient about having them all available in PHOENICS is that they can all be used at the same time on the same problem. Then the relative advantages and disadvantages, for a variety of circumstances, can be determined. At least one of the schemes (CLDA) is unique to PHOENICS.

 UESF 10: Once again, the ability to make comparisons is valuable; for some solvers are better in some circumstances, and some in others.

 UESF 11: Fine-grid embedding is the structured-grid answer to the complex-geometry problem for which unstructured grids are used in some codes. It is exemplified in the 3-part-airfoil and gas-leak applications above. The ability to indicate, through VR, where a fine grid should be embedded is particularly convenient. Strictly speaking, X-cell has not yet been officially released, except to especially interested customers. See however reference 14.

 UESF 12: GCV differs from the other body-fitted-coordinate formulations in PHOENICS (and in some other codes) primarily in its superior convergence, even when the grid is very skewed.

 UESF 13: Sliding and multi-block grids are provided by other codes also. What is perhaps unique in PHOENICS is its possession of this feature both for collocated and for staggered grids.

 UESF 14: The parabolic option is unique to PHOENICS. Its great merit is that it allows large grids to be used even with small computers. The smoke-in-a tunnel example in section 4.2 has a million-node grid, but was run on a 386 laptop computer.

 UESF 15: PHOENICS has long offered full capabilites on personal computers; and it was the first general-purpose CFD code to be generically parallelised.

 UESF 16: Remote super-computing will be like piped water was to people reliant on buckets and wells. The CFD users of the future will take it for granted.

 UESF 17: Contact CHAM's sales department.

 UESF 18: Lowest price is CHAM's policy, for equal quality, of course.

 UESF 19: Shareware is CHAM's way of paying back the academic community for the benefit which it has derived from free scientific exchanges. Shareware PHOENICS is not as powerful as PHOENICS-3.1; but it still has features (parabolic, two-phase, BFC, etc) which many commercial codes do not.

 UESF 20: See section 5.2.

 UESF 21: See section 3.2.

 UESF 22: See section 5.5.1.

 UESF 23: See section 5.5.2.

 UESF 24: ASAP stands for arbitrary source (or solid) allocation procedure. It was first issued with PHOENICS-2.1, and was very successful in enabling complex bodies to be fitted within cartesian grids. Now that VR and PARSOL have come to the fore, ASAP has retreated to the background; but the main concept remains the same. See reference 13 for the early version. The three-part-airfoil application uses PARSOL.

 UESF 25: GENIUS, now that VR is increasingly used for geometry set-up, has also retired to the background. However, it is still available, as a generic interface for linking PHOENICS with third-party grid-generation packages

 UESF 26: Not all competing codes have their own display packages. PHOTON, although not as slick as many specialist products, has the advantage of being PHOENICS-specific; and its "macro" feature is extensively used in the Input-File Libraries. The VR-Viewer is however competing with PHOTON strongly for PHOENICS-users' favour.

 UESF 27: See section 3.6

 UESF 28: Definitely a unique feature.

 UESF 29: Rightly or wrongly, CHAM has chosen to give priority to comprehensiveness and correctness, with appearance and elegance following as soon as possible. The reason is that the rapid developments in code capability leave the documenters always lagging somewhat behind. However, they are catching up.

 UESF 30: Contact CHAM's User-Support team for details.