mwtoews

I have used Budget Analyzer before, however it is only useful for summarizing the budget at all time steps for a group of nodes (e.g., a polygon, or even all nodes). With the result file, I can't see the individual nodal data. Just a reporting of the budget summary in/out of the group of nodes, for each time step.

What I need is the in/out flow term for each node, each time step. So for example, with my FEFLOW problem I have 31032 nodes and 730 time steps, so I would expect 22684392 flow terms (=31032 * 731).

In FEFLOW 6.0, I have a transient flow only problem that I would like to extract budget information from. From a DAC file, I can get the flow budget data from a single timestep, and view it in the model.

In particular, I can choose Data > Process Variables > Flow > Budget

then right-click Budget > Export Data > All Nodes ...

then I can choose a file name (e.g. [tt]scenario1_budget_000.pnt[/tt]) as ASCII Point File type. The resulting file is perfect. It shows the +/- (inflowing/outflowing) values in the specified units (e.g., l/s).

The problem is that I have 731 time steps. If I could do four of these exports a minute, I'm looking at just over three hours of repeating the same clicking. Furthermore, I have a few scenarios in separate DAC files to repeat this procedure, which will fill a few days of clicking.

Is there a way to export the budget for all nodes and all time steps?

As I am also capable of programming, I have a related question : http://www.feflow.info/forum/index.php/topic,1089.0.html

This is not an IFM question, but is the closest forum category match to post this question.

I would like to know how to determine the nodal in/out flow terms from data in an ASCII DAC file. I've already done the hard work (using Python, NumPy and HDF5 for caching), and I have structured arrays of data that I can slice and do custom budget reporting.

But the problem is that the structure in the ASCII DAC file does not match the FEFLOW 5.4 File Format document. I have tested the following with a DAC file saved as ASCII for version 5.4 and 6.0 from the Classic interface. The format for both versions appears to be almost identical.

In normal words, my FEM problem is a transient flow only, with 1 layer. A few excerpts from the FEM portion of the file is as follows:

[tt]CLASS (v.6.006)
  2    1    0    3    1    0    8    8    0
DIMENS
31032  29487      6    730  2000      0      7      0      1    -1      0      1    17      0      0      0      0
...
STATELEV
    3    1
[/tt]
Based on the above excerpts, the following parameters are extracted:
CLASS: ic1=2; ic2=1; proj=0; ndm=3; n_layers=1; ic0=0
DIMENS: np=31032; ne=29487; nbn=6; numb_dt=730; phreatic=1
STATELEV: slice1: 3 (Movable); slice2: 1 (Fixed)

Furthermore, several other parameters can be determined, using the logic provided in section 3.2.4.1 "General Structure of the data block":
[table]
[tr]
[td]num_slices:[/td][td]2[/td][td][tt](n_layers + 1)[/tt][/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]nodes_per_slice[/td][td]15516[/td][td][tt](np/num_slices)[/tt][/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]num_t:[/td][td]731[/td][td][tt](numb_dt + 1)[/tt][/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]is_3D_problem:[/td][td]True[/td][td][tt](ndm == 3)[/tt][/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]is_mass_transport:[/td][td]False[/td][td][tt](ic1 == 0)[/tt][/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]is_thermohaline_transport:[/td][td]False[/td][td][tt](ic1 == 8 )[/tt][/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]is_heat_transport:[/td][td]False[/td][td][tt](ic1 == 5)[/tt][/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]is_unconfined:[/td][td]True[/td][td][tt](phreatic == 1)[/tt][/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]is_slice1_free_movable:[/td][td]True[/td][td][tt](statelev[0] == 3)[/tt][/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

All of the above makes perfect sense, when looking at the problem settings in the FEFLOW 6.0 GUI. However, the table12 formatted nodal datasets in the file does not match the documentation. In total I read 7 parts (not 6, as I would have expected):
[list type=decimal]
[li][tt]head_data[/tt] with dim=31032
        (min: 108.8, mean: 208.0, max: 296.6)[/li]
[li][tt]vx_data[/tt] with dim=31032
        (min: -32.43, mean: -0.026, max: 22.6)[/li]
[li][tt]vy_data[/tt] with dim=31032
        (min: -33.3, mean: 1.6 , max: 13.3)[/li]
[li][tt]vz_data[/tt] with dim=31032
        (min: -23.5, mean: -0.011, max: 2.84)[/li]
[li][tt]slice_elevation_data[/tt] with dim=15516
        (min: 108.8, mean: 193.9, max: 296.6)[/li]
[li][tt]acceleration_data_mass[/tt] with dim=31032
        (min: 108.8, mean: 208.0, max: 315.8 )[/li]
[li][tt]unknown[/tt] with dim=31032
        (min: -8.77, mean: 0.00182, max: 18.64)[/li]
[/list]

After [tt]unknown[/tt], the [tt]flow_cbc_data[/tt] is clearly listed to the end of each data block ([tt]FBCCEND[/tt]), so I know I've isolated the correct portion of the data block (I'm less interested in the [tt]flow_cbc_data[/tt] part, and skip past it to [tt]FBCCEND[/tt]). I've verified that parts 1 to 5 are correctly extracted, as their values can be viewed/verified in the FEFLOW 6.0 GUI for randomly selected nodes/timesteps. The remaining parts 6 and 7 I'm not certain about. The sequence of nodal data blocks are documented as follows:
[tt]if (ic2 != 2) { // True
    acceleration_data_mass // Read as part 6
    if (ic1 != 2) { // False
        if (ic2 == 1) { // True
            acceleration_data_flow // Not read
        }
        if (ic1 == 8 ) { // False
            acceleration_data_heat // Not read
        }
    }
}
// Read undocumented part 7
[/tt]

What is [tt]acceleration_data_mass[/tt], and why is it being read for a flow-only problem? Why isn't [tt]acceleration_data_flow[/tt] being read? What is the 7th part (I've labeled this [tt]unknown[/tt])? It shouldn't be there, but I have 31032 values in table12 format remaining before [tt]flow_cbc_data[/tt] starts, so it is something worth storing in the DAC.

Now back to the in/out flows for budget calculation. How does FEFLOW calculate this for a given node? Is it the difference of acceleration data between two time steps? I can't seem to get the same values by doing calculations as I can see in the FEFLOW GUI for Flow > Budget.

Any help is appreciated. Let me know if more info is needed.

Thanks Peter, this procedure works perfectly.

I know you can save a new simulation into ASCII DAC format, but I don't know how to resave an existing binary DAC into ASCII. For example, open a binary Full Simulation Record (*.dac) file file ... now what? The "record" button is already glowing red. If I click the record button, all options are disabled (see attached image). So it is really unclear how I can save this file as ASCII.

I have a few binary DAC files that were produced by someone else. I would like to do some processing with these files, but I need them in ASCII DAC format. How can I "Save as" ASCII DAC?

I'm most comfortable with the newer FEFLOW 6 interface, but I can fire up the Classic interface, if required.

Thanks!

Yup, I'm looking for these too. All that I have found is documentation for 5.4: [url=http://www.feflow.info/uploads/media/file_formats_04.pdf]http://www.feflow.info/uploads/media/file_formats_04.pdf[/url].

The help for FEFLOW 6 says:[quote]A complete *.fem file format description can be downloaded from the FEFLOW web site[/quote]([url=http://www.feflow.info/html/help/default.htm?turl=HTMLDocuments/reference/fileformats/fileformats.htm]http://www.feflow.info/html/help/default.htm?turl=HTMLDocuments/reference/fileformats/fileformats.htm[/url]), however I'm lost as to where. Is it in progress?

A binary FEM format description would be a nice bonus.