DREAMSettings

The DREAMSettings object represents the settings which are given to a DREAM simulation as input. It contains a number of convenience and helper routines, as well as type and option checking, which ensure that many errors are caught even before DREAM is ever run.

DREAM settings are sorted into a number of categories. Each category contains settings for a particular module of the kernel:

Settings category	Description
collisions	Flags specifying how particle collisions are handled.
eqsys	Settings for all unknown quantities being solved for.
hottailgrid	Hot-tail momentum grid settings.
other	Settings for all “other” quantities (which are not explicitly solved for).
output	Settings related to the simulation output.
radialgrid	Radial grid settings.
runawaygrid	Runaway momentum grid settings.
solver	Settings for the equation system solver.
timestep	Settings for the module determining the size of time steps to take.

Basic usage

The example below illustrates the basic idea of how to use the DREAMSettings object for generating a settings file that can be given to the dreami executable. After running this script, a file named dream_settings.h5 should appear. By running dreami dream_settings.h5, the simulation can then be executed.

from DREAM.DREAMSettings import DREAMSettings
import DREAM.Settings.CollisionHandler as Collisions

# Construct a settings object with defaults
ds = DREAMSettings()

# Modify settings according to simulation
ds.collisions.collfreq_mode = Collisions.COLLFREQ_MODE_FULL
ds.eqsys.E_field.setPrescribedData(0.3)
...

# Save settings to file (which can then be given
# to the 'dreami' executable)
ds.save('dream_settings.h5')

Details about which settings are available can be found on the separate pages linked to in the table at the top of this page.

Chaining simulations

Simulations in DREAM can straightforwardly be run in sequence. For example, one often wants a simulation to start from an initial state which is the solution of a (possibly non-linear and time-dependent) system of equations. The easiest way to achieve this may then be to solve the system of equations with DREAM and copy the solution as input to a subsequent DREAM simulation. An equivalent situation is when one would like to extend the duration of previous simulation.

To accomodate this need, DREAM simulations can be chained. This means that the settings of the second simulation explicitly refer to the output file of the first simulation, and load initial values for all quantities from that file. Specifically, to chain two simulations, one can simply derive the DREAMSettings object for the second simulation from that of the first:

ds1 = DREAMSettings()
...
ds1.output.setFilename('output1.h5')
...
# Chain the two simulations: ds2 takes settings from ds1, and loads
# initial values from the output of ds1.
ds2 = DREAMSettings(ds1)

The last line will create a new DREAMSettings object and transfer all settings of ds1 into ds2. It will also establish a link between ds2 and the output file output1.h5. This can also be done explicitly, even if ds2 was not created from ds1, using

ds2.fromOutput('output1.h5')

Optionally, one can also give timeindex as the index in the output file of the time step to take initial values for all quantities from.

Ignoring some initial values

By default, when two simulations are chained, initial value for all quantities in the second simulation will be loaded from the output of the first simulation. This however means that any initial values specified by the user via the DREAMSettings object will be overridden. To nevertheless initialize one or more unknown quantity according to the settings (rather than loading their values from the previous output), one can provide their name in the ignore list:

ignorelist = ['N_i', 'W_i']
ds2.fromOutput('output1.h5', ignore=ignorelist)

Alternatively, can overwrite just the ignore list:

ignorelist = ['N_i', 'W_i']
ds2.setIgnore(ignorelist)

If you want to keep the list of quantities to ignore when chaining simulations, you need to explicit enforce this when creating the new object:

ds2 = DREAMSettings(ds1, keepignore=True)

Copying settings without chaining simulations

Sometimes one may want to copy settings from one DREAMSettings to another. This can be achieved in a similar way to when simulations are to be chained:

ds2 = DREAMSettings(ds1, chain=False)

This will copy all settings, but will not instruct DREAM to take initial values from the previous output file.