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+---
+title: "This month in AvaFrame - January 2021 edition"
+date: 2021-01-30T19:08:58+01:00
+draft: false
+slug: "monthlyjan2021" 
+---
+
+Welcome to the first instalment of our monthly update of 2021. This month we
+started getting into the nitty-gritty of our dense flow module's numerical
+implementation:
+
+ To facilitate and improve our development we added new test cases. This time
+they are more geared towards testing specific numerical issues and more *targeted*
+issues, concentrating for now on the dense flow module com1DFAPy.
+
+    * flat plane: a *pile of sand* (i.e. particles with coulomb friction)
+    on a flat plane. The pile should or should not move depending on the
+    steepness of the sides of the pile
+
+    * inclined slope: similar to the previous, a *pile of sand* (coulomb
+    friction again) flowing down an inclined plane. This test enables comparison
+    to a solution described in
+    [Savage-Hutter 1993](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01176861) 
+    in which the depth and velocity profiles can be determined in an analytical
+    form.
+    
+    * (rotated) pyramid: generation routines to produce a, potentially rotated
+    and/or shifted, pyramid with a release area at the top of the pyramid. This
+    allows for checking of rotational symmetry, among others. 
+    
+    
+ We are currently looking at and analysing how to place the initial particles
+and what effect this has further along the simulation. 
+
+ Getting into the numerical development also means the compute times start to
+play a role. We moved some parts of the code over to Python to improve the
+computation efficiency of the python dense flow kernel. We are starting to
+profile our python code (pudb and cProfile for those interested). 
+
+ For general analysing with ana3AIMEC: after some deliberation we decided to
+  move the (arbitrary) starting point of our runout calculation to the top of
+  the main avalanche profile (instead of some point further down the profile).
+  See our definitions for this in the [glossary](https://docs.avaframe.org/en/latest/glossary.html).
+  If this makes you internally scream in agony because we got it all wrong, feel
+  free to contact us!
+  
+ We have a ton of minor changes which however improve usability quite a lot. That means
+  mundane (some might say boring) things like enabling underscores in input names,
+  consistent naming of result variables, extended export capabilities (more
+  time steps), and many more. 
+
+ Bringing AvaFrame to the Windows world is also currently high on our
+  priority list. We explored options on the best ways to install and maintain an
+  AvaFrame installation on as many Windows versions as possible. Expect some
+  exciting news on this one in the next few weeks. 
+  
+As you can see, we are off to a good start this year! As always please contact
+us with any questions or issues you have!
+
+Felix
+