User Guide

TOSCA uses ASCII input files, organized in files and dictionaries. The code provides some level of input checking, meaning that non-recognized inputs are followed by an error message that lists available possibilities or points the user to possible problems.

To get a first idea of how to set up and run a TOSCA simulation, the user is advised to first follow the installation instructions in Installation and then run one of the provided tutorial cases, as described in Example Cases. We tried to provide a list of example cases that is comprehensive enough to allow users to always find a tutorial that is close enough to their own needs. Notably, all tutorial cases use very coarse/simple meshes, so that they can run on a laptop. The user needs to adapt these cases to their own needs in order to use TOSCA for production runs. If problems should arise in doing so, please open a GitHub issue.

TOSCA adopts a standardized case structure. The minimum-required case structure is depicted on the left of the following code-block, while the case structure required to run e.g. atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) simulations with potential temperature stratification is shown on the right (i.e. with the addition of the boundary/T and ABLProperties.dat files).

The principal control file for a TOSCA simulation is the control.dat file, located in the case directory (see control.dat for details).

Depending on the type of simulation that one wishes to perform, flags can be activated in the control.dat, which prompt TOSCA to read additional input files and data.

case_name                case_name
├── control.dat          ├── control.dat
├── mesh.xyz             ├── mesh.xyz
├── tosca                ├── ABLProperties.dat
├── tosca2PV             ├── tosca
└── boundary             ├── tosca2PV
    |── U                └── boundary
    └── nut                  ├── U
                             |── nut
                             └── T

A complete list of all entries to all TOSCA input files is contained in Sec. Input Files. Sec. Spatial Mesh describes the two mesh formats available in TOSCA and explains how boundary patches are identified using curvilinear coordinates, in which TOSCA is formulated. Sec. 2-Way Nesting (Overset Mesh) explains how to set up TOSCA cases with two-way nested domains (i.e. using the overset mesh technique) and Sec. Data Acquisition System details the various outputs that the user can extract from different kinds of simulations using TOSCA’s acquisition system. Finally, Sec. Execution shows a typical TOSCA workflow, where the solution is first performed using the tosca executable, the simulation is then possibily restarted, and tosca2PV is used in the end to convert output binary data into .xmf format to be inspected in ParaView.

• Input Files
• Spatial Mesh
• 2-Way Nesting (Overset Mesh)
• Data Acquisition System
• Execution