Getting started

Prerequisites and installation

OpenSTREAM is a MATLAB program for simulating two-phase flow behaviors. The Python version of CoolProp is used for calculating the fluid properties. CoolPropWrapper is a MATLAB interface that interacts with CoolProp through Python. Both OpenSTREAM and CoolProp are hosted here on GitHub. Making a copy (cloning) of these programs will be our first step.

Install using Git and Github

• There are two main ways of interacting with GitHub to use and contribute to the OpenSTREAM project: Git Command Line Interface (CLI), and the GitHub Desktop program. Use the links to set up one of the methods.

• After installing and setting up your Git mechanism of choice, if you chose to use the:

  • Command line interface

    • Clone (make a copy of) the repository using: git clone --recursive git@github.com:OpenSTREAM-solvers/openstream.git (SSH authentication)

      or

      git clone --recursive https://github.com/OpenSTREAM-solvers/openstream.git (HTTPS authentication).

      (The --recursive flag is needed to clone submodules, such as the mfval/CoolPropWrapper, in one command.)

    • Then, use cd openstream to enter the newly created folder. You should see the newly downloaded files for the project.

  • GitHub Desktop program

    • Open the program, login, and Clone repository. Everything should be cloned automatically. This is part of the setup guide linked above.

MATLAB-Python compatibility

Before using the OpenSTREAM, we need to make sure Python with the appropriate version is installed, and MATLAB knows the location of the Python executable. The following instructions are from the CoolPropWrapper repo.

1. Determine which versions of Python are compatible with your version of MATLAB: compatibility list. The second column, MATLAB Interface MATLAB Engine, shows the compatible Python versions.

2. Start MATLAB and verify a compatible python version is installed:

   • Run pyenv()

     • If the results are empty or a incompatible Python version is shown, go to step 3.

     • If the results are satisfactory, continue to step 5.

3. Install compatible Python3

   • Windows: Go to python.org to download the specific version of Python you need. Follow the setup procedure.

   • Linux: Chances are, you already have a version of Python installed. Verify the version using python3 --version. If Python is not installed, or a incompatible version is installed, install appropriate version using the OS package manager. For Debian-based Linux distros (such as Ubuntu), use sudo apt-get install python3.x to install the x version of Python3.

   • MacOS: Someone with a Mac, please write how you do this…

4. Specify Python installation location in MATLAB:

   • Run pyenv('Version', pathtopython'), where pathtopython is the path to where Python is installed. Here are some typical locations depending on your OS:

     • Windows: C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python310\python.exe, for version 3.10.

     • Linux: /usr/bin/python3.10, for version 3.10. Use whereis python3 to find possible locations.

     • MacOS: Someone with a Mac, please write how you do this…

5. Try creating an instance of CoolPropWrapper() in MATLAB:

   • Run cp=CoolPropWrapper().

     • If you are using the CoolPropWrapper as MATLAB Package in OpenSTREAM, use cp=CoolPropWrapper.CoolPropWrapper().

   • If the CoolProp module is not installed, you will be prompted to do so automatically. If you prefer to do this manually, in your terminal, run python3 -m pip install --user -U CoolProp, replacing python3 with the specific python path as necessary.

Next steps

Congrats! Hopefully, at this point, you have successfully made a copy of this repo and installed the required programs. Next, let’s run the Tutorial script to make sure everything is working properly.