add monthly update feb 20201

content/posts/MonthlyFeb2021.md

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+---
+title: "This month in AvaFrame - February 2021 edition"
+date: 2021-03-05T19:08:58+01:00
+draft: false
+---
+
+A short month with a lot of progress! It went over so quickly, even this post
+missed the end of the month...
+
++ The big focus this month was the implementation of our dense flow kernel
+  (com1DFAPy) in  python/cython. The aim is to replicate the results of our
+  current com1DFA module to be able to swap them. 
+  This meant diving deep into every numerical/model detail, things like
+  * artificial viscosity
+  * friction forces 
+  * particle initialisation
+  * and many more. 
+  
+  Alongside this development a lot of *supporting* work was needed,
+  i.e. making things easier for us, as one example: being able to read and export
+  particle positions.
+
++ While using our tests we came across some areas to improve on:
+  * the module *ana1Tests* was introduced, where we collect code related to
+    testing, analytical solutions and similar (however not stuff related to code
+    testing, i.e. pytest)
+  * a helpful new feature is the possibility to filter benchmark tests by tags, i.e.
+    one only wants to run tests including entrainment, or only idealised
+    topographies, or some other combination
+  * the similarity solution was improved, with added run script and setup
+    reading from ini file.
+
++ Then we have a lot of minor improvements:
+  * global plotting flags, options to save outputs and plots
+  * rename Velocity to FlowVelocity, rename the *hockey* test case to *parabola*
+  * update topographies with channels
+  * functions for 3D topography plots 
+  * more flexible cleaning routines 
+  * code coverage for cython files
+  * documentation updates
+
+And last but not least: our 2nd Scientific Meeting took place at the beginning
+of the month. Thanks again to all participants for your helpful and much
+appreciated input!
+
+That's it for this update, thanks for reading! 
+
+Felix