Quickstart to Running and Plotting

This page describes a minimal demonstration of running and plotting a TORAX run using the pre-built run_torax script. See Running simulations for more details.

It is convenient to set up a Python virtual environment for running TORAX, as described in Installation Guide.

Running a basic example

The following command will run TORAX using the configuration file examples/basic_config.py.

run_torax --config='examples/basic_config.py'

Simulation progress is shown by a progress bar in the terminal, displaying the current simulation time, and the percentage of the total simulation time completed.

More involved examples in torax/examples include non-rigorous mockups of the ITER hybrid scenario:

• iterhybrid_predictor_corrector.py: flat-top phase with the linear solver using predictor-corrector iterations.

• iterhybrid_rampup.py: time-dependent ramppup phase with the nonlinear Newton-Raphson solver.

To run one of these, run for example:

run_torax --config='examples/iterhybrid_rampup.py'

The configuration files can be inspected on GitHub at torax/examples/, or by cloning the repository.

Post-simulation

Once complete, the time history of a simulation state and derived quantities is written to a timestamped file of the format state_history_%Y%m%d_%H%M%S.nc.

The output directory is user configurable, with a default /tmp/torax_results. The output_dir flag overrides the default output directory, e.g.

run_torax --config='examples/basic_config.py' --output_dir=/path/to/output/dir

To take advantage of the in-memory (non-persistent) cache, the process does not end upon simulation termination. Instead, various options are provided in a menu. See Running simulations for more details. Most pertinent for this minimum demonstration is simulation plotting, selected with the pr user command, followed by 0 to plot the last run.

Simulation plotting script

Beyond plotting via the run_torax script post-simulation, a standalone plotting script is also available.

To plot the output of a single simulation, run the following command:

plot_torax --outfile <full_path_to_simulation_output>

Replace <full_path_to_simulation_output> with the full path to your simulation’s output file. Optionally, specify a custom plot configuration using --plot_config, with the path for the plotting configuration module. If no --plot_config is specified, the default configuration at plotting/configs/default_plot_config.py is used. See Plotting simulations for more details.

A slider allows scrolling through the output of all simulation timesteps.

Cleaning up

If in one, you can exit the Python virtual env by deactivating it:

deactivate