VSim Release Notes

VSim 12.1

March 31, 2023

The release notes describe new features for the VSim computational engine (Vorpal) and the VSimComposer graphical user interface.  Deprecated features and bug fixes are also noted within the release notes.

New and Updated VSim 12.1 Features

 

VSim Computational Engine (Vorpal)

  • Added a new reaction type, Forward Scatter.
  • Added new scatter type (Turner) to electron ionization reactions
  • Added feature allows particle current fields to be stored by particle species in cartesian electrostatic simulations.
  • Improved Histories so that they can be more flexible to handle non-uniform time steps and restarts with different time step sizes.
  • Fixed several issues with reaction diagnostics.

VSim Examples

  • Converting the Turner and Capacitive Coupled Plasma (CCP) 1D examples to use new collisions framework.
  • The new CCP example is named capacitivelyCoupledArPlasma1D.
  • Refined the Turner example to more clearly demonstrate agreement with Turner’s benchmark and to discuss how this benchmark case can be modified to accurately model more general low-temperature plasma discharges, as shown in this and other CCP 1D examples.
  • Renamed capacitivelyCoupledPlasma1D to capacitivelyCoupledHePlasma1D and deprecated it as it uses impactColliders instead of the framework of the new reaction.
  • Improved the Wafer Impact example by including collisions between electrons and neutral species.
  • Improved the physics accuracy of the Negative Ion Beam example by changing it to use forward scattering.
  • Improved the Penning Source example by implementing energy-conserving particle deposition, which allows for reaching larger electron densities than the previous implementation and reaching a steady state.
  • Modified the Cylindrical Hall Thruster visual example to make the boundary conditions similar to the ones discussed in the referenced publication.
  • Updated the Negative Ion Beam examples to use the forward scatter reaction.

VSim Analyzers

  • Improved convertSlabToPointHistories.py analyzer to generate arrays of cell coordinates for each axis for uniform Cartesian meshes.
  • Corrected normalization of computeAED.py so that phase space is correctly computed as a function of solid angle.
  • Added new analyzer, upgradeHistory, to convert Histories.h5 files to the new format (only needed if restarting from pre-12.1 History file).
  • Improved documentation of computeFlux.py analyzer.
  • Renamed analyzer hfssToVsh5.py to convertHFSS2VsHdf5.py.
  • Renamed analyzer photonicWaveguideModes.py to computePhotonicWaveguideModes.py.
  • Added two new analyzers. computeFlux.py, which computes the number, charge, and energy flux onto a surface and convertCSV2VsHdf5.py, which takes a general CSV file with locations and field components and creates a VsHdf5-compatible field file that can then be read into VSim. An example of use for this analyzer is magnetic field data generated by FEMM as an external field.
  • ComputePhotonicWaveguideModes.py is deprecated and will be removed in the next major version of VSim.

VSim Graphical User Interface (VSimComposer)

  • Added interface support for cylindrical electromagnetic field solves.
  • Allowing for the removal of custom analyzers from VSimComposer and automatically cleaning up opened analyzer tabs pointing to removed custom analyzers.
  • Added support for recording several analyzers in a simulation in order to copy them to the save-as directory and add them to the analyzer list for a working directory.
  • Preventing the copying of an analyzer overlapping of itself, which ultimately caused a removal of the original file.
  • Fixed issue with disabled dump slider with new 1D field plots.
  • Fixed an issue where the nodal E field on the cylindrical axis could be incorrect in visual setup simulations.
  • Improved messages about geometry operations and file copying in Composer.
  • Improved user feedback while simulations are closing.
  • Improved message visibility for rendering issues in Visualize Tab.
  • Improved the efficiency of closing a simulation with opened visualization.
  • Adding support for the Sun Grid Engine scheduler.
  • Continued improvements for robustness.
  • Fixed the issue where some message dialogs with very long messages go off the visible screen by limiting the characters to 1000.
  • Improved the run log on the file system by adding a plain text version.
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