Free user support
All PHOENICS users with a current PHOENICS Maintenance Agreement, ie those who have paid the licence fee and maintenance charge for the current period, are entitled to unlimited user support, without further charge.
Free user support is however confined to enabling users to run the PHOENICS code modules successfully in a conventional manner, to understand the documentation, and to detect any common mistakes which they may have made.
Users requiring support in resolving convergence problems or implausible solutions are requested to demonstrate the problem on as coarse a mesh as possible before sending their files to CHAM. The model should be simplified as far as possible in terms of dimensionality, physical models (such as turbulence, radiation, etc), physical properties, boundary conditions, removing GROUND, etc. This not only helps CHAM to provide a speedy resolution of the problem, but can help the user identify the cause of the problem himself.
When requesting user support, please include the following information:
- Your organisation's name and PHOENICS Maintenance Agreement number
- Version of PHOENICS being used
- Details of hardware configuration and operating system
- Any information that may help CHAM to answer the query, such as problem sketches, Q1 files, GROUND coding, and a clear statement of the problem encountered with the software.
Users who require assistance in setting up new models can avail themselves of CHAM's ECS scheme, as follows.
Extended Consultancy Support (paid-for)
PHOENICS users sometimes require assistance of a different kind.
For example, they may require general advice about the best way to model a particular physical process or equipment item, making use of the available features of PHOENICS. To give this advice, CHAM's support staff may need to spend time in studying the user's specific needs.
Alternatively, what needs to be done may be clear, but the user may prefer the work to be done by CHAM personnel, whose greater experience may reduce the time taken.
In some circumstances, the user may have started a complicated model-building operation and then run into difficulty; he or she may then seek CHAM's assistance in the detection and removal of its cause.
While eager to provide assistance of these kinds, CHAM's User-Support team does have to make a charge for it, based usually on the number of hours expended. The cost of the work would be agreed in advance during contractural negotiations with the user. CHAM would commence work on receipt of the user's formal authorisation. In very exceptional cases, when the user agrees that the results of the work can be placed in an open-to-all library, or in the Applications Album, CHAM may share the cost of the work.
Work of this kind is normally carried out under an "Extended-Consultancy Contract" between CHAM and the user's organization.
Of course, if it should prove that a user's difficulty arose from a "bug" in the software, CHAM will correct that bug at its own expense.
Click here for a copy of CHAM's standard terms and conditions for the performance of consulting work.