IDAES Integrated Platform 2.1.0 released

Today we’re announcing the 2.1.0 release of the IDAES Integrated Platform, this is the first update on the 2.X line of IDAES releases.

Highlights

New IDAES Examples Repository

Starting with this release, the IDAES examples are developed in the new IDAES/examples repository.
Along with many content and usability improvements, the most significant changes are:

- To install the examples, after installing IDAES, run: pip install idaes-examples
  - The idaes get-examples command, previously used for this, has been removed
- The HTML version is now available at https://idaes-examples.readthedocs.io
  - The previous URL, https://idaes.github.io/examples-pse, will not be updated and may be removed at some point in the future

For more details, refer to the resources available at IDAES/examples.

Removal of Non-Functional Apps

A review of the code in the idaes/apps and idaes/models_extra folders was undertaken, and a number of tools were identified as being outdated or non-functional and no longer supported by their development teams. Due to this, the following tools have been removed:

idaes/apps/alamopy_depr      (note that the new ALAMOpy interface remains avaialble in idaes/core/surrogates)
idaes/apps/helmet
idaes/apps/ripe
idaes/apps/roundingRegression
idaes/models_extra/carbon_capture

Pyomo 6.6

This version of IDAES is the first requiring Pyomo 6.6. This version of Pyomo contains multiple internal improvements and refactorings.While for the majority of cases this should have positive or no impact on solvability of IDAES models, we are aware of a small number of models that have been affected as a result of these changes.

For more information, refer to the Pyomo 6.6.1 release notes.

Other Highlights

- Model Initialization
  - A prototype API for a new approach to initializing IDAES models is now available which makes available some new techniques for initializing models. This is documented in the Initializing Models Reference Guide
- Modular Properties Framework
  - Support for some transport properties
- Helmholtz Equation of State properties
  - Better error checking for case where unit models are set to include phase equilibrium but the property package is set to support only a single phase
- Multi-Stream Contactor model: a new base model for systems involving contacting of two or more streams with mass transfer. This model is intended to be used as the foundation for models such as membrane separators, solvent extraction and other similar processes. This is documented in the Multi-Stream Contactor Reference Guide
- idaes/models_extra/power_generation
  - report() methods for unit models using Helmholtz equation of state
- General Code Maintenance
  - Streamlining of dependencies and creation of new optional dependency groupings to support non-core tools
  - General linting of codebase to ensure compliance with most pylint checks
  - Spell checking of all code and doc strings
  - Removal of backward compatibility code for Python 2

Help and Support

You are invited to make a reservation for one of our monthly virtual/zoom office hours if you would like individual help with the migration or use of the platform. Just send an email to idaes-support@idaes.org with details on your question, issue or situation. The idaes-users@idaes.org email list and github discussion forums are still available at our idaes-pse github repo.