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Documentation ​

This directory contains maintained product documentation for users and contributors.

  • User's manual is the complete reference: network definitions, units and sign conventions, data structure, governing equations and component relations, solution methods, the interface, the fourteen shipped example problems, and the verification record. Its interface screenshots (figures/user-manual/) are captured from the built application; regenerate them after a UI change with npm run build && npx tsx scripts/capture-manual-figures.ts.
  • Architecture describes module boundaries, public/internal APIs, configuration lifecycle, and test tiers.
  • Python package documents the pip-installable openflume API (models, solves, results, fluid properties, CLI), how it runs the bundled core, parallel sweeps, the trust model, and the release process.
  • User extensibility covers user-defined components, registers, logic, expressions, PID controllers, and the trust model.
  • Parameter bindings explains formula-bound geometry fields, convection heat-transfer models, and solid property models.
  • Testing tiers details fast, all-files, and opt-in slow scientific validation commands.
  • Solver convergence documents known convergence behavior, including coupled residual certification and dome-edge limit cycles.
  • Real-fluid performance discusses CoolProp backend rationale, derivative semantics, and performance guidance. Regenerated from live solves with npx tsx scripts/real-fluid-performance.ts.
  • Fluid catalogue describes the generated 124-fluid CoolProp HEOS catalogue, including picker contents, alias canonicalization, and no-transport validation semantics.
  • Solid properties outlines the solid material catalogue (sources, temperature ranges, caveats) along with temperature-dependent property design and validation results.
  • Fluid-front transport details fluid-front transport model definition, lifecycle contracts, and verification.
  • Combustion documents reacting junctions (CEA-coupled combustion chambers solved inside the core Newton system), the offline NASA CEA table generator, the LOX/RP-1 thruster validation case, and v1 limitations.
  • Compressible duct-flow validation recreates the NASA GFSSP TFAWS-2007 compressible-flow verification paper, case for case and figure for figure (Fanno, Rayleigh, combined friction and heat, converging–diverging nozzle). Regenerate with npx tsx scripts/compressible-validation-report.ts.
  • Incompressible hydraulics validation verifies the steady solver against classical closed-form pipe hydraulics (Hagen–Poiseuille, Darcy–Weisbach, parallel splits, a Hardy-Cross multi-loop network, hydrostatics, pump operating point). Regenerate with npx tsx scripts/hydraulics-validation-report.ts.
  • Transient tank validation verifies the transient integrator against lumped tank gas dynamics (choked adiabatic blowdown, time-step convergence, two-tank equalization, adiabatic fill heating, scheduled-valve blowdown). Regenerate with npx tsx scripts/tank-transient-validation-report.ts.
  • Thermal network validation verifies the conjugate thermal system against closed-form heat transfer (composite wall, radiation–convection equilibrium, lumped-capacitance cooldown, heated pipe, counterflow heat exchanger vs ε–NTU). Regenerate with npx tsx scripts/thermal-validation-report.ts.
  • Combustion and rocket-thruster validation verifies the reacting-junction machinery against analytical solutions: CEA table thermodynamic identities and frozen c* closed forms, chamber/injector/choked-flow integral balances, isentropic and friction-inclusive quasi-1D nozzle profiles, and the regenerative wall stack against an exact series–parallel resistance network. Regenerate with npx tsx scripts/combustion-validation-report.ts.
  • Microfluidics validation verifies the rectangular-channel and capillary-channel closures against exact solutions (Shah & London duct law, Washburn filling with air resistance, Jurin rise, flow- and resistance-coupled filling) and rebuilds six published microfluidic networks from their papers: a serial-dilution cell, a hydrodynamic bead trap, a parallel manifold, a gravity siphon, capillaric-circuit valves and a bubble-damped syringe network. Regenerate with npx tsx scripts/microfluidics-validation-report.ts.
  • Rigid-column fluid-transient validation verifies the lumped fluid-inertia term and gas-cushion node against rigid-column surge theory (tanh startup, hyperbolic decay, gas-spring oscillator, polytropic compression). Regenerate with npx tsx scripts/fluid-transient-validation-report.ts.

See also Contributing and Security.