Pyrolysis Kinetic Preprocessor

PKP (Pyrolysis Kinetic Preprocessor) is software for preprocessing kinetics of coal and biomass pyrolysis.

Introduction

PKP was developed at TU Bergakademie Freiberg and Universitaet Stuttgart. It interfaces different detailed pyrolysis software:

CPD
FG-DVC (not active)
Flashchain (not active)
Polimi
BioPolimi

These softwares can be used for calibrating empirical pyrolysis models, which can be easily included and used for CFD simulations. The following empirical models are available:

SFOM (Single First Order reaction Model)
C2SM (Competing 2 Step Model)
DAEM (Distributed Activation Energy Model)
Biagini-Tognotti model

More information about PKP can be found in [Vascellari2013]_

Installation

PKP requires an updated python distribution. It is reccomanded to use Anaconda, or to create a virtual environment usig venv.

Installation using Anaconda

Follow the instruction to install Anaconda. Most of the packages should be already installed. If necessary install these packages using the Anaconda package manager.

Remaining packages can be installed using pip. For a local installation:

or:

The missing packages will be automatically installed by pip.

It is possible to speed-up the calculation using just-in-time (jit) compilation using Numba. Since its installation is quite complicate, it is recommended to use Anaconda:

Installation using virtual environmnt

Virtual environment is used to create local python installation, specific for a project. It allows to have an update python distribution without touching the python system installation.

In python 2.7 virtualenv needs to be installed:

Here a new python environment, called pkp is created in $HOME and it is activated. The option -p defines the original python interpreter used to create the new environment.

In python 3, it is a default module:

The required packages will be installed with:

or:

Installation of Cantera

Polimi and bioPolimi models. require the use of Cantera, while CPD works without Cantera. Follow the instruction in the website to build Cantera in your system.

With anaconda, cantera can be installed:

This command according to your system is not always working properly, especially because of problems existing betweene difference gcc versions.

Use

The runPKP script executes PKP. The script can be found in the src directory, or in the bin directory in the python installation path: $PYTHON_PATH/bin/runPKP. If a local installation was used (--user option with pip), the script is in $HOME/.local/bin/runPKP.

..code:: bash: # runPKP input.yml -o Results

The command will execute PKP with input.yml as configuration file. The Results will be saved in the directory Results. If no directory is specified the results will be stored in Results.

runPKP

usage: runPKP [-h] [-n NP] [-o RESULTS_DIR] [-d] yml_file

PKP Runner

positional arguments:
  yml_file        YAML input file

optional arguments:
  -h, --help      show this help message and exit
  -n NP           Number of processor
  -o RESULTS_DIR  Results directory
  -d              Print debug messages

mighelone / pkpcoal