About

Penacho calculates and draws the gas dispersion of a smokestack in the atmosphere. The plume evolution and the pollutant concentration distribution over the surrounding area can be seen in an interactive 3D graph.

Penacho is free software, published under GNU GPL.

The user can input the problem data in a structured graphical interface: fluid characteristics at the chimney output, air and surface conditions, atmospheric stability, and yearly wind conditions. It's a huge amount of data, but Penacho starts with typical problem parameters. The UI is built with the Qt framework.

Penacho solves its own physic atmospheric dispersion model: about 53 equations covering fluid mechanics, plume rise, particles deposition, diffusion of contaminants, etc. Some model simplifications are: one dimension plume, stationary flow, and plain ground. The differential equations are solved with Cvode C libraries (part of Sundials project).

Penacho can draw plume evolution, pollutant concentration distribution over the surrounding area, and particles deposition. Penacho provides impressive 3-dimensional graphs, completely interactive: zoom, rotation, and move. Concentration can be plotted simultaneously as an isosurface and a grid plane in x, y, and/or z-axis direction.

Simulation results can be exported as a text file, Vtk structured points, or CSV (suitable for spreadsheets). The graphics are built with the Visualization Toolkit (Vtk) library.

UI, math solver, and graphics module are completely independent. So, for example, you don't have to know a word about Qt or Vtk if you are just editing some differential equations.

Penacho source code is self-documented using Doxygen, which generates a complete C++ class and source file reference manual, both in HTML and PDF. PDF documentation about physic modeling, mathematical equations, users' manual, and programmers' manual is written in LaTeX, but so far only in Spanish.

About Penacho: it was born in a Master Thesis in Industrial Engineering. "Penacho" means plume in Spanish, but it also means pride.

🄯 2010 Jose Luis Barros Fernandez