v4.1.0

[andrew-platt]

Changelog (since 4.0.5)

Overview

This release removes the SuperController from FAST.Farm in favor of ZeroMQ communication between ROSCO controllers.
This release also adds several new features including direct coupling of MoorDyn to SeaState, rectangular members in HydroDyn and SubDyn, vortex-induced vibration (VIV) capabilities in MoorDyn, and a new pyOpenFAST module for calling c-binding libraries directly from Python.
This release also includes several bug fixes and improvements for AeroDyn, BeamDyn, MoorDyn, OpenFAST, several various c-binding libary interfaces, and GitHub actions.

General

CMake build system

#2632 Reduce optimization level for FAST*_Types.f90 with gcc (@andrew-platt)

GitHub actions

#2636 Add job to build Windows executables to deploy.yml (@deslaughter)

#2771 Update GH conda-deploy action to use Ubuntu 24.04 (@andrew-platt)

Visual Studio build system

#2866 VS build: fix MD, add SeaStateS_c_binding and update GH deploy action (@andrew-platt)

Python packages

openfast_io

#2658 openfast_IO MoorDyn compatibility (@RyanDavies19)

pyOpenFAST

This is a new python package that interfaces the c-bindings library versions of OpenFAST with Python. Users who want to call standalone OpenFAST modules from Python will want to look into using this package. Note that the documentation is limited at this time.

This package is also used in testing (see documentation on testing environments)

#2680 Refactor the Aerodyn/Inflowwind Python interface to the C-bindings interface (@faisal-bhuiyan)

#2719 Python infrastructure improvements (new pyOpenFAST package) (@rafmudaf)

Solvers

FAST.Farm

#2729 Remove supercontroller from FAST.Farm (@abhineet-gupta)

OpenFAST

#2671 Avoid ending program when called as a shared library (@bjonkman)

#2705 MoorDyn-SeaState Coupling (OpenFAST and FAST.Farm) (@RyanDavies19)

#2760 bug fix: Adjust steady-state solver small angle assumptions (@bjonkman)

Module changes

multiple modules

#2770 Bug fix for Failed0 error checking functions (@rafmudaf)

AeroDyn

#2848 Bug fix: remove spaces in OLAF's UA summary file name (@bjonkman)

BeamDyn

#2642 [BugFix] BD: variable passing in Calc_RR0mEta_rho (@bjonkman, @andrew-platt)

HydroDyn

#2646 Implementation of rectangular members in HD and SD (@luwang00)

#2663 HydroDyn C-binding: Added mass matrix (@luwang00)

#2787 HD-cbind: Add HydroDyn input files handle (@wenchaoyu, @andrew-platt)

#2865 Reduce memory requirement in HydroDyn initialization (@bjonkman)

MoorDyn

#2746 MoorDyn bugfixes (@RyanDavies19)

#2650 MoorDyn: VIV and Rk4 solver (@RyanDavies19 )

#2791 MD cbind: correction to description of mesh point mapping (@andrew-platt)

#2794 MoorDyn wave directional spreading and custom current profile if no SeaState current (@RyanDavies19)

SeaState

#2720 Adds first pass SeaState C Binding interface (@rafmudaf)

ServoDyn

#2798 Docs: correct Bladed Interface channel 63 description (@andrew-platt)

SubDyn

#2646 (see above in HydroDyn)

TurbSim

#2808 [BugFix] TurbSim calculating grid bottom location (@ptrbortolotti)

Documentation

#2867 Docs: update info on testing (with pyOpenFAST module) (@andrew-platt)

#2850 Docs Update for the New Rectangular Members in HydroDyn and SubDyn (@luwang00)

Typo fixes in code comments

There have been several "fluff" pull requests with only typo fixes and no code changes.

#2858 Fix Typos in Comments and Log Messages for Flexural and Crushing Ice Failure Initialization (@kilavvy)

Regression Testing

#2765 MHK RM1: reduce HD resolution (@andrew-platt)

Code API changes

The SuperController has been removed. This changes the interfaces for some files:

CPP interface

• glue-codes/openfast-cpp/src/OpenFAST.H
  • class fastInputs {
  • class OpenFAST {
• glue-codes/openfast-cpp/src/OpenFAST.cpp
  • class fastInputs
  • fast::fastInputs::fastInputs():

OpenFAST library interface

• modules/openfast-library/src/FAST_Library.h
  • FAST_ExtLoads_Restart - removal of SuperController arguments
  • FAST_ExtLoads_Init - removal of SuperController arguments
  • FAST_ExtInfw_Restart - removal of SuperController arguments
  • FAST_ExtInfw_Init -removal of SuperController arguments
• modules/openfast-library/src/FAST_Library.f90
  • FAST_ExtLoads_Restart - removal of SuperController arguments
  • FAST_ExtLoads_Init - removal of SuperController arguments
  • FAST_ExtInfw_Restart - removal of SuperController arguments
  • FAST_ExtInfw_Init -removal of SuperController arguments

HydroDyn c-binding library interface

• modules/hydrodyn/src/HydroDyn_C_Binding.f90
  • HydroDyn_C_Init - arguments
  • HydroDyn_C_CalcOutput_and_AddedMass - new routine

MoorDyn c-bindings libarary interface

• modules/moordyn/src/MoorDyn_C_Binding.f90
  • MD_C_Init - new argument

Input file changes

This release brings several input file changes including the FAST.Farm (removal of supercontroller sections), HydroDyn (new sections for rectangular members, revised members table), SubDyn (new rectangular cross-section table, and additional columns in other tables).
A list of changes can be found here: https://openfast.readthedocs.io/en/main/source/user/api_change.html. However, we recommend that if you start by comparing to the complete set of input files found in the regression tests: https://github.com/OpenFAST/r-test/tree/v4.1.0 (example input files from the regression testing)

Known issues

There are several issues that have not been addressed in this release due to time constraints, but will be addressed in future releases. These include:

• No visualization of rectangular members from HydroDyn or SubDyn through the VTK output options
• Missing and broken features from several c-binding library interfaces:
  • the AeroDyn_Inflow_c-binding library interface does not allow for coupling to the tower. This will require an interface update.
  • the HydroDyn_c-binding library interface does not currently support vizualization. This will require an interface update.
  • the InitNodePositions input to HydroDyn_c-binding library interface does not currently work with any non-zero x or y coordinates (non-zero z is ok)
  • the MoorDyn_c-binding library interface does not currently support vizualization. This will require an interface update.
  • error messages from c-binding library interfaces will get truncated to 1024 characters. A fix is nearly ready, but will have to wait until the next release.
• There are leftover unused and incomplete files from development in the glue-codes/python directory. These will be removed later.
• A glue-codes/labview/src/WaveTank.f90 file is included in this release, but it is incomplete and untested. This is a placeholder for internal development work that may be released in complete form at a later date.
• The GitHub deploy action to build Windows executables does not currently catch failed builds. This might be addressed at a later date. We are manually checking these builds for now.
• Documentation on the new pyOpenFAST module is incomplete. Partial documentation exists on how to use it in regression testing, but no documentation or examples exist on using it to call c-bindings modules from Python.
• Documentation is incomplete for HydroDyn, SubDyn, and a few other modules.

Precompiled Windows Binaries

Coming soon...

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This discussion was created from the release v4.1.0.