KineticGas

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KineticGas is available on PyPi as the pykingas package, for python versions 3.8-3.11, compiled for MacOS running on Apple Silicon, Linux and Windows.

In addition, wheels versions of KineticGas > 2.0.0 for macOS, Linux and Windows, as well as wheels for the latest version on GitHub can be downloaded here. Instructions for installing with pip directly from a downloaded wheel are provided at the linked page.

For MacOS running on Intel, or other operating systems, KineticGas must currently be built from source or installed from one of the distributed wheels linked above.

A KineticGas C++ library is available, and can be built using cmake and make.

Python - pykingas

Dependencies

The Python package dependencies are listed in the pyproject.toml file in the root directory of the package.

To compile the binary that is called from the python wrapper, pybind11 is required. pybind11 is included in cpp/external as a git submodule, so cloning the KineticGas repository should provide you with the files you need.

A standalone C++ module, that works without the python wrapper is currently under development. See the branch pure_cpp/ for the most up-to-date version there.

Building from source

Python wheels for the latest version of KineticGas on main are built for macOS and Windows using cibuildwheels, and distributed here.

A build system using cmake and make is set up to support Mac, Linux and Windows.

First Try

If all goes well, running

git clone https://github.com/thermotools/KineticGas.git
cd KineticGas
git submodule update --init --recursive
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make install
pip install ..

make sure to activate a virtual environment first if you want to avoid doing system-level installs.

Short explanation

The dynamic library libpykingas will be built and installed to the pykingas directory, additionally, the fluids directory containing the fluid parameter database is copied into the pykingas directory.

When something goes wrong

Note: The build system has been changed relatively recently, and is less tested than the build system that was used in the 2.0.0 release. If you encounter issues, please don’t hesitate to post an issue on github so that we can improve robustness.

C++

The KineticGas C++ library is built using cmake and make. All dependencies are included as git submodules under cpp/external, and should be properly retrieved when you clone the KineticGas repository and run git submodule update --init --recursive.

Note: KineticGas depends on ThermoPack. If an installation of ThermoPack is not found, the build system will attempt to compile it as part of the build process. If you already have an installation of ThermoPack, setting the environment variable THERMOPACK_DIR to the root directory of ThermoPack (where thermopack-config.cmake is found), that installation of ThermoPack will be used istead of re-compiling. You can also download a binary distribution of ThermoPack at the ThermoPack repository.

Building and installing

If all goes well, you should be able to build the KineticGas C++ library by running

git clone https://github.com/thermotools/KineticGas.git
cd KineticGas
git submodule update --init --recursive
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -Dpurecpp=ON -Dpylib=OFF ..
make install

This will provide you with the lib/libkineticgas.[so/dylib/dll] dynamic library, and the minimal example program build/run_kineticgas, which is built from the source file at cpp/run_kineticgas.cpp.

Fluid file search path

By default, KineticGas will search for fluid files at the relative path ../fluids (relative to the location of the libkineticgas dynamic library). This default search path can be changed by building with

cmake -DFLUID_DIR=<path/to/fluids> ..

where supplying a relative path will result in the library searching for fluid files in the path relative to it’s location (KineticGas/lib). Supplying absolute paths is also supported. To check or change where your compiled KineticGas library is searching for fluid files, use the [get/set]_fluid_dir functions with signatures

// In utils.h
void set_fluid_dir(const std::string path); // supports both absolute and relative paths (relative to dynamic library location).
std::string get_fluid_dir(); // Current search path for fluid files

Linking to the KineticGas library

An example program with a CMakeLists.txt demonstrating how you can include and link to the KineticGas library once it is installed is found in KineticGas/cppExamples.

In short terms: Setting the environment variable KINETICGAS_DIR to the top-level directory of the KineticGas package (where kineticgas-config.cmake is found), should allow cmake to find the library using find_library(KINETICGAS). Some convenience variables are set once the library is found: