Virtual Engineering

The Virtual Engineering (VE) project provides a set of Python modules to enable users to connect mathematical models of unit operations to predict outcomes for an entire chemical process. This VE approach is currently being developed to support the beginning-to-end simulation of the low-temperature conversion of lignocellulosic biomass to a fuel precursor. More details can be found in the VE documentation.

Getting Started

New users are encouraged to review the Getting Started guide, which describes how to create the Conda environment and run the Jupyter Notebook.

Developer Quick Start

First, create a Conda environment from the environment.yaml file by opening a terminal, navigating to the root level of the Virtual Engineering directory, and running

conda env create -f environment.yaml -n [environment name]

where [environment name] is replaced with the desired name of your VE Conda environment. This Conda installs the required packages and pip installs the virteng Python package. Next, activate the environment with

conda activate [environment name]

and launch the Notebook by running

jupyter notebook

When the Notebook landing page opens, you'll be able to navigate to the application/Template_application directory and open the virtual_engineering_notebook_template.ipynb which will guide you through the next steps.

Installation

Install G2Aero from sources with Python3.x:

bash git clone https://github.com/NREL/VirtualEngineering.git cd VirtualEngineering python setup.py install

Installing via conda-forge bash conda install -c conda-forge virtualengineering

Git Submodules

Some applications (e.g., Bioconversion application) might depend on code in other Git repositories. The dependency is known as a submodule. Submodules are specified in .gitmodules (a hidden file on some systems) and are located in subfolders of submodules/ of the application repository. Initiate the submodule system with

git submodule init

Then update specific modules with

git submodule update submodules/[name of submodule]

This command will perform a git clone or pull for that module. For example, in the Bioconversion application, to run the enzymatic hydrolysis CFD model, update Nek5000. To run the well-mixed "Ligncellulose" model (no CFD), update CEH_EmpiricalModel. To run a bioreactor CFD simulation, update OpenFOAM-dev and ThirdParty-dev. For example, see README_OpenFOAM.

Contributing

Contributions are always welcome! See contribution guidelines for ways to get started.