.. sec:InputsTimeStepping:

Time Stepping
=============

The following inputs must be preceded by "amr."   Note that if both are specified, both criteria
are used and the simulation still stop when the first criterion is hit.  In the case of unsteady flow,
the simulation will stop when either the number of steps reaches max_step or time reaches stop_time.
In the case of unsteady flow, the simulation will stop when either the tolerance (difference between
subsequent steps) is reached or the number of iterations reaches the maximum number specified.

+------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+-------------+-----------+
|                  | Description                                                           |   Type      | Default   |
+==================+=======================================================================+=============+===========+
| max_step         | Maximum number of time steps to take                                  |    Int      |  -1       |
+------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+-------------+-----------+
| stop_time        | Maximum time to reach                                                 |    Real     | -1.0      |
+------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+-------------+-----------+

The following inputs must be preceded by "mfix."

+----------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+-------------+--------------+
|                      | Description                                                           |   Type      | Default      |
+======================+=======================================================================+=============+==============+
| fixed_dt             | Should we use a fixed timestep?                                       |    Int      |   0          |
+----------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+-------------+--------------+
| cfl                  | CFL constraint (dt < cfl * dx / u) if fixed_dt not 1                  |    Real     |   0.5        |
+----------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+-------------+--------------+
| dt_min               | Abort if dt gets smaller than this value                              |    Real     |  1.e-6       |
+----------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+-------------+--------------+
| dt_max               | Maximum value of dt if calculating with cfl                           |    Real     |  1.e14       |
+----------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+-------------+--------------+
| tcoll_ratio          | DEM timestep equals the min collision time divided by this value      |    Real     |   50.0       |
+----------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+-------------+--------------+

The following inputs must be preceded by "mfix" and are only relevant if running a problem to steady state.
Currently, the criterion for setting "steady_state" to true is if "dt" is undefined in mfix.dat

+-----------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+-------------+------------+
|                       | Description                                                           |   Type      | Default    |
+=======================+=======================================================================+=============+============+
| steady_state          | Are we running a steady-state calculation?                            |   Int       | 0          |
+-----------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+-------------+------------+
| steady_state_tol      | Tolerance for checking if we have reached steady state                |   Real      | None       |
|                       |                                                                       |             |            |
|                       | (Must be set if steady_state = 1)                                     |             |            |
+-----------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+-------------+------------+
| steady_state_maxiter  | Maximum number of allowed iterations to converge to steady state      |   Int       | 100000000  |
+-----------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+-------------+------------+

Setting the Time Step 
---------------------

There are several ways that the inputs are used to determine what time step 
is used in the evolution of the fluid-particle system in MFiX-Exa.   

1) In a pure particle case, the :cpp:`mfix.fixed_dt`, if specified, is only used to determine the frequency
of outputs, it has no effect on the "dtsolid" used in the particle evaluation. If you do not specify a positive
value of :cpp:`mfix.fixed_dt` then the code will abort.

.. highlight:: c++

::

    amrex::Abort::0::If running particle-only must specify fixed_dt in the inputs file !!!

The particle time step "dtsolid" is determined by computing the collision time "tcoll" from particle properties,
then setting "dtsolid" to be "tcoll / 50".

2) In a pure fluid case, there are two options:

  * If you want to fix the dt, simply set :cpp:`mfix.fixed_dt = XXX` and the fluid time
    step will always be that number. 

  * If you want to let the code determine the appropriate time step using the advective CFL
    condition, then set :cpp:`mfix.cfl = 0.7` for example, and the fluid time step will
    be computed to be dt = 0.5 * dx / max(vel).

      * If dt as computed in the compute_dt routine is smaller than the user-specified 
        ```mfix.dt_min``` then the code will abort:

         .. highlight:: c++

         ::

             amrex::Abort::0::"Current dt is smaller than dt_min !!!

      * If dt as computed in the compute_dt routine is larger than the user-specified 
        ```mfix.dt_max``` then dt will be set to the minimum of its computed value and dt_max

      * Note that the cfl defaults to 0.5 so it does not have to be set in the inputs file. If neither
        :cpp:`mfix.cfl` nor :cpp:`fixed_dt` is set, then default value of cfl will be used.
        If :cpp:`mfix.fixed_dt` is set, then it will override the cfl option whether 
        :cpp:`mfix.cfl` is set or not.

These options apply to steady state calculations as well as unsteady runs.  

3) In a coupled particle-fluid case, dt is determined as in the pure-fluid case.  In this case
   the particle time step "subdt" is first computed as in the particle-only case ("dtsolid"), 
   then is adjusted so that an integral number of particle steps fit into a single fluid time step.
