Plotting Experimental Data in Flownex

Plotting data in the workbook designer may be useful for a variety of reasons. You may wish to plot the results of multiple steady state runs, compare data to empirical results, or even access graphs with an API or.NET Framework. Flownex Reports allow users to setup report templates in a Spreadsheet Gear workbook or Microsoft Excel. For this blog, we will be plotting experimental data using Flownex version 8.14.1.4845.

Introduction

We are going to walk through a simple example of plotting experimental data using Excel to input data and format charts. We will create a new results page, enter our data into the Workbook Designer, then add chart elements in excel to display our pressure loss test data. We will be able to view our Plot in Flownex, with the option of adding additional datasets in the future.

Creating an Excel Report

Creating a new worksheet is simple. Navigate to the Project View in the lefthand corner of the Flownex Window.

Next, you will click on the Excel Reports and Pages Option icon (shown above).

Now, you will be able to view and add excel pages to your project. We will add a new report to this project to store our experimental data by right clicking on the results folder and selecting “New Report”.

The newly generated report will open in the center pane. We have the option to report simulation inputs or results by dragging them into this report. However, we will use pasted test data for this example.

Modifying Reports in Excel

Next, right click our new report and select “Edit Template in Excel”

Flownex will close this report and open its template in Excel.

We can insert data and charts into our results template using excel. We will paste our pressure and flow test data to create a scatterplot from this data.

Once we have the desired layout, we can save the document and close it. Unpopulated cell data may also be specified as an input, if you would like to populate it with simulation results.

Viewing our Report Template in Flownex

Now, we can open our formatted report template to view our changes.

This graph will automatically update as input cells are modified. You can also setup your results to populate cells read by your table. You could also use this method to compare test data to simulation data using a parameter table or to plot multiple transient runs on the same chart.