scikit-aero

Name

scikit-aero

Website

https://github.com/Pybonacci/scikit-aero

Author

Juan Luis Cano <juanlu001@gmail.com> and others (see AUTHORS)

Version

0.2-dev

scikit-aero is a Python package for various aeronautical engineering calculations. It is based on several existing Python packages on the field, but intends to provide pythonic syntax, use of SI units and full NumPy arrays support among other things. scikit-aero is licensed under the BSD license.

It was started by Juan Luis Cano in 2012 and has code from several contributors (see AUTHORS). The source code and issue tracker are both hosted on GitHub

https://github.com/Pybonacci/scikit-aero

Notice: This package is under heavy development and the API might change at any time until a 1.0 version is reached. It is stable but not feaure complete yet, and it might contain bugs.

Features

• Pythonic interface.
• Use of SI units.
• Full support of NumPy arrays.
• Support for both Python 2 and 3.
• Fully tested and documented.
• Standard atmosphere properties up to 86 kilometers.
• Gas dynamics calculations.

Future

• Airspeed conversions.
• Coordinate systems.
• Most of the PDAS.

Usage

Atmosphere properties:

>>> from skaero.atmosphere import coesa
>>> h, T, p, rho = coesa.table(1000)  # Altitude by default, 1 km

Inverse computations allowed with density and pressure, which are monotonic:

>>> h, T, p, rho = coesa.table(p=101325)  # Pressure of 1 atm

Gas dynamics calculations:

>>> from skaero.gasdynamics import isentropic, shocks
>>> fl = isentropic.IsentropicFlow(gamma=1.4)
>>> p = 101325 * fl.p_p0(M=0.8)  # Static pressure given total pressure of 1 atm
>>> ns = shocks.Shock(M_1=2.5, gamma=1.4)
>>> M_2 = ns.M_2  # Mach number behind a normal shock wave
>>> os = shocks.Shock(M_1=3.0, theta=np.radians(25), weak=True)

Dependencies

This package depends on Python, NumPy and SciPy and is usually tested on Linux with the following versions:

• Python 2.7, NumPy 1.6, SciPy 0.11
• Python 3.3, NumPy 1.7.0b2, SciPy 0.11.0

but there is no reason it shouldn't work on Windows or Mac OS X and other Python versions newer or equal to 2.5. If you are willing to provide testing on this platforms, please contact me and if you find any bugs file them on the issue tracker.

Optional

For running the tests, py.test is recommended (see Testing). The examples are in IPython notebook format, so to run them locally you will need a recent version of IPython and its dependencies.

Install

This package uses distutils. To install, execute as usual:

$ python setup.py install

It is recommended that you never ever use sudo with distutils, pip, setuptools and friends in Linux because you might seriously break your system [1][2][3][4]. I recommend using virtualenv, per user directories or local installations.

Testing

scikit-aero recommends py.test for running the test suite. Running from the top directory:

$ py.test

To test code coverage, make sure you install py.test-cov extension and run:

$ py.test --cov skaero/

Examples

Some applied examples are in the folder examples in the IPython notebook format. To see them without running locally, use nbviewer; for example, to see the cd_nozzle.ipynb notebook, browse to

http://nbviewer.ipython.org/url/raw.github.com/Pybonacci/scikit-aero/master/examples/Oblique%20shocks%20chart.ipynb

Bug reporting

I am pretty sure I never introduce bugs in my code, but if you want to prove me wrong please refer to the issue tracker on GitHub.

Citing

If you use scikit-aero on your project, please drop me a line.

License

scikit-aero is released under a 2-clause BSD license, hence allowing commercial use of the library. Please refer to the COPYING file.

See also

• AeroCalc, package written by Kevin Horton which inspired scikit-aero.
• MATLAB Aerospace Toolbox,
• PDAS, the Public Domain Aeronautical Software.