[FLASH-USERS] FLASH4-beta released

[James Guillochon]

Hi Klaus, I was unable to find any additional information in the user guide
on this point in the release notes:

The use of Gravitational acceleration is handled more accurately in
> Hydrodynamics.


Could you clarify as to what the improvements are?

Thanks!
- James

On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 11:33 AM, Klaus Weide <klaus at flash.uchicago.edu>wrote:

>
> The Flash Center is pleased to announce the beta release of the next
> version of the FLASH code, version 4 beta. FLASH 4 beta includes
> several new capabilities and resolves many bugs found in
> previous releases up to 4-alpha.
>
>
> The capabilities added since the alpha release are :
>
> Capabilities added since the FLASH4-alpha include:
>
> * 3T capabilities, support for non-Cartesian geometry, and support for
> stationary rigid bodies in the unsplit hydrodynamics solver
>
> * Upwind biased constrained transport (CT) scheme in the unsplit staggered
> mesh MHD solver
>
> * Full corner transport upwind (CTU) algorithm in the unsplit hydro/MHD
> solver
>
> * Multi-Temperature Multi-Material Multi-Table Eos
>
> * Ability to use cold opacities
>
> * Several solvers have been threaded with two different degrees of
> parallelism. The
>  block level threading  is coarser grained with one FLASH block being
> given to one
>  thread, there is a finer grain threading which threads performance
> critical loops.
>  Both modes use OpenMP.
>
> * Laser drive is reconfigured and threaded.
>
> * Several new HEDP simulation setups have been added.
>
>
> Improvements to capabilities since the alpha release include:
>
> * The HEDP capabilities have been more extensively tested, and are
> therefore more robust.
>
> * Eos related runtime parameters are clearer.
>
> * Several new shortcuts have been added to make it easier to use the
>  new HEDP capabilities.
>
> * The use of Gravitational acceleration is handled more accurately in
> Hydrodynamics.
>
> * The interface with Hypre is more robust for diffusion.
>
> * More boundary conditions in PFFT, some Poisson solvers can now handle
>  combinations of different boundary conditions (DIRICHLET, NEUMANN,
> PERIODIC)
>  on different domian boundaries.
>
>
> Known Limitations:
>
> * The new multipole solver is missing the ability to treat
>  a non-zero minimal radius for spherical geometries, and the
>  ability to specify a point mass contribution to the potential.
>
> * Unsplit diffusion does not work in 3D.
>
> * HYPRE needs to be installed to use Unsplit Diffusion, Unsplit diffusion
>  uses hypre-2.7.0b (might not be backward compatible).
>
> * Usage of HYPRE Split solver in FLASH4 is only for internal debugging
> purposes
>  and is not generally recommended for usage.
>
> * Split diffusion has not been tested with PARAMESH.
>
> * Some configurations of hydrodynamic test problems with Chombo grid
>  show worse than expected mass and total energy conservation.  Please
>  see the Chombo section in Hydro chapter of the FLASH user guide for
>  details.
>
> * We have experienced the following abort when running
>  IsentropicVortex problem with Chombo Grid:
>  "MayDay: TreeIntVectSet.cpp:1995: Assertion `bxNumPts != 0' failed. !!!"
>  We are currently in contact with the Chombo team to resolve this
>  issue.
>
> * The absoft compiler produces erroneous results with optimization in
>  gr_markRefineDerefine routine. The results are fine without
>  optimization. There may be other files with similar behavior, but
>  this is the only one we are aware of.
>
> * The PG compiler fails to compile source files which contain OpenMP
>  parallel regions that reference threadprivate data.  This happens in
>  the threaded versions of the Multipole solver and the within block
>  threaded version of split hydro.  A workaround is to remove
>  "default(none)" from the OpenMP parallel region.
>
> * The unsplit hydro solver has an issue with preserving symmetry in
>  non-fixed block size mode in UG.
>
> * The ReineckeMeyer setup will not compile with the NAG compiler because
>  of the presence of f77 like file used computing analytical solution
>
> * We have been unable to use Hyper with OpenMPI in the FLASH code, the
>  runs result in execution failures.
>
> * The -index-reorder setup flag does not work in all the configurations.
>  If you wish to use it please contact the FLASH team.
>
> * A longer list of changes is contained in the User's Guide in Section 1,
>  What's New in This Release.
>
> The release is available at:
>
> http://flash.uchicago.edu/site/flashcode/
>
> A stripped down version of FLASH3 that may be downloaded without a
> license is also available at the same site.  This is essentially the
> FLASH framework without any implementations. Additionally a collection
> of mini-apps that represent the FLASH workload in many different
> configurations is also availble under the general FLASH license
> agreement.
>
>
> The Flash Center continues to provide support for "add-ons" to the
> code.
>
> Additionally, the FLASH testing software FlashTest, which became
> available with the FLASH3, continues to be available for
> download at:
>
> http://flash.uchicago.edu/site/flashcode/
>
> The code architecture and most interfaces of FLASH4 are compatible
> with FLASH3.  Many, but not all parts are also backward compatible
> with FLASH2.  The Flash Center has written extensive documentation
> detailing how to make the transition from FLASH2 to FLASH3 as smooth
> as possible.  The user should look to:
>
> http://flash.uchicago.edu/site/flashcode/user_support/
>
> The website also contains other documentation including a User's Guide
> and a developer's section.  A new feature from FLASH3 onward is the
> online description of the public interface routines to various code
> units. A new feature from the current release is a list of available
> setup shortcuts.
>
>
> Development of the FLASH Code was funded by the DOE-supported
> ASC/Alliance Center for Astrophysical Thermonuclear Flashes,
> and continues to be funded by DOE NNSA and NSF.  We
> acknowledge support received from Lawrence Livermore National
> Laboratory and the University of Chicago.
>
> All publications resulting from the use of the FLASH Code must
> acknowledge the Flash Center for Computational Science.
>  Addition of the following text to the paper acknowledgments
> will be sufficient.
>
>        "The software used in this work was in part developed by the
>        DOE-supported Flash Center for Computational Science
>        at the University of Chicago."
>



-- 
James Guillochon
Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics
University of California, Santa Cruz
jfg at ucolick.org
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