OpenDA course using D-Flow-Flexible Mesh

VORtech and Deltares have organized an OpenDA course at the Delft Software Days 2015. This course differed slightly from the previous one day OpenDA courses, because at the same event, Deltares released its new open source software engine for hydrodynamical simulations, D-Flow-Flexible Mesh (D-Flow-FM).

The OpenDA wrapper for D-Flow-Flexible Mesh has been developed by VORtech and Deltares, so a new set of exercises based on D-Flow-Flexible Mesh were used instead of the academic example models. The students have learned to calibrate and apply the Ensemble Kalman filter to an estuary model in D-Flow-Flexible Mesh. This way, they used OpenDA on a model relevant for their own work, since most students had a hydrodynamic background.

The course was a success: the students had to work hard but all went home with a lot of knowledge on OpenDA and with working examples. Using OpenDA with their own applications should not cost them more effort than replacing the example D-Flow-Flexible Mesh model with their own model.