Dear FiPy enthusiasts,
It is with great pleasure that we introduce to you the Virtual
Kinetics of Materials Laboratory, VKML. VKML is a set of simple FiPy
examples that simulate basic aspects of kinetics of materials through
an interactive Graphical User Interface. The seminal development
includes four examples:
Polycrystalline Growth and Coarsening: simulates the growth,
impingement, and coarsening of a random distribution of
crystallographically oriented nuclei. The user can control every
aspect of the model such as the nuclei radius, the size of the
simulation cell, and whether the grains are homogeneously dispersed or
only on one wall of the simulation.
https://www.nanohub.org/tools/vkmlpsgg/
Dendritic Growth: simulates the anisotropic solidification of a single
solid seed with an N-fold axis of crystallographic symmetry embedded
in an undercooled liquid. The user can specify many material aspects
of the solidification process, such as the thermal diffusivity and the
strength of the surface tension anisotropy. Default values are
physical but arbitrary. This model is based on the phase field method
and an example shown in the FiPy manual.
https://www.nanohub.org/tools/vkmlggs/
Two-Dimensional Spinodal Decomposition: simulates the time-dependent
segregation of two chemical components and its subsequent coarsening,
as presented by John Cahn. The default values are physical but
arbitrary.
https://www.nanohub.org/tools/vkmlsd/
Three-Dimensional Spinodal Decomposition has the same functionality as
the 2D version, but has an interactive Three-Dimensional viewer.
https://www.nanohub.org/tools/vkmlsd3d/
These modules provide a Graphical User Interface to FiPy, and allow
you to perform simulations directly through your web browser. This
approach to computing removes the need to install the software on your
local machine (unless you really want to), allows you to assess
current and potential FiPy applications and instead you only need a
web browser to access it and run it. In other words, you can run these
simulations (and simulations like this one) from a Windows machine, a
Mac, or a Linux box, and you can also run the modules from Michigan,
Boston, Japan, or England: from wherever you are. Moreover, if you
close your web browser and leave your calculation running, when you
come back a few hours later, your calculation will persist.
Additionally, if there is something you want to share with a coworker,
wherever he or she might be (e.g., the other side of the planet), you
can grant him temporary access to your calculation so that the third
party can directly see the output (or specify inputs directly into it,
without having to travel to where you are). It is a great way to
privately (or publicly) collaborate with other people, especially if
the users are in different parts of the world.
The only requirement to run VKML is to register (registration is 100%
free) in the nanoHUB. Please go to: www.nanoHUB.org
You can find a link to the working project from: http://www.ctcms.nist.gov/fipy/
Sincerely,
R. Edwin Garcia
Michael Waters
R. Edwin García
Assistant Professor of Materials Engineering
School of Materials Engineering
Purdue University
Neil Armstrong Hall of Engineering
701 West Stadium Avenue
West Lafayette, IN 47907-2045
phone: (765) 494-0148
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
web: http://bicephalous.ecn.purdue.edu/~edwin
