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Special Attention Notes
• If the text or graphics in this file are not clear, you may need to print this document. Resolution should improve on the printed page.
• New basin-scale flood control algorithms have been implemented in RiverWare. These algorithms are described in the Flood Control section of these release notes as well as in the online help.
• RiverWare’s DMI has been significantly enhanced-- both in its functionality and in its ease of use. A brief description of these enhancements is provided later in these release notes. Users are encouraged to read the DMI Documentation in the online help for a more detailed description of the new DMI.
• The SCT has been re-implemented and enhanced. A brief overview of the new features and functionality are provided in these release notes. Users are encouraged to read the SCT Documentation in the online help for full detail.
• On the Water User, the Application Efficiency slot for the Pump Back Return Flow methods was changed from a series slot to a scalar slot. Any data previously in the Application Efficiency slot will be lost when users open and save their models in RiverWare 4.4. Users will need to re-enter a single efficiency value into the Application Efficiency slot.
• There has been a change to the lookup date on periodic slots with irregular intervals. If a lookup is done on the Periodic Slot for a date which falls exactly on an irregular interval boundary, RiverWare now always returns the lookup for the prior interval. This change could break existing rulesets. References to periodic slots at “date -1” might need to be replaced with the more natural “date”.
• Many RiverWare Solaris users have reported problems using the numeric keypad (on the right side of the keyboard). The problem on Solaris is that the key mapping used for Solaris/X11 keyboards confuses Riverware’s GUI toolkits (and those in other applications). The solution is to change the mapping of the numeric keypad keys to conform to a setup that Riverware can understand. Instructions and a script file are available on our web site, under the RiverWare user pages:
1. Log in to the RiverWare Sponsor and User pages.
2. Scroll down to the RiverWare User Information section and select “RiverWare Application Notes”.
3. Select “Numeric Keypad Fix for Solaris”and follow the instructions.
Note:  This is NOT a problem on Windows. Windows users should ignore this fix.
• A new power method, Plant Efficiency Curve method, has been added to Power Reservoirs. This method is similar to the Plant Power Calc method, except that it uses one table, Plant Power Table, instead of the four tables used by the Plant Power Calc method (Best Turbine Q, Max Turbine Q, Best Power Coefficients, and Max Power Coefficients). This allows the user to put in several efficiency points instead of just two (the best and max). The Plant Power Table is a 3-D table that relates operating head, turbine release, and power. The Plant Power Table is used to automatically generate the max and best turbine Q tables (called auto best and auto max turbine Q for this method). The Plant Power Table replaces the Power Linearization Table used in Optimization. All existing models using the Power Linearization Table will be updated automatically to change the name of the Power Linearization Table to Plant Power Table. Users should be aware that data must be entered into the table in increasing, concave blocks of the same operating head for the 3-dimensional table interpolation to work correctly. It is possible that the new concavity check may catch mistakes in the data (that the old Power Linearization Table ignored), thus causing the run to abort. Data may need to be updated to fix any non-concavity issues. See the documentation in the online help for more information on this method and the formulation of the table.
• A new predefined rules function, FloodControl, has been added to RPL. Some users’ rulesets may already have a user defined function with this same name. Though the ruleset may open, it will not load or validate. An error will be posted to notify users that the name FloodControl is not unique. Users will have to edit their ruleset to change the name of their user defined FloodControl function to some other name.
• When validating a ruleset, RiverWare now issues diagnostics about all the errors encountered all at one time. This change was necessary to check whether two functions with the same name (e.g., FloodControl) were included in the ruleset. Users may see more errors at one time than they are used to seeing.
• Users of the ResetRanDev predefined function should be aware of recent performance enhancements that do not execute RPL print statements and send them to the diagnostic output unless Diagnostics are turned on. Some users’ rulesets execute the ResetRanDev function through a print statement. ResetRanDev should now always be called from a function with arguments, not from a print statement. E.g.,
object.slot[]=IF(NOT ResetRanDev (...))
STOP_RUN “ResetRanDev Failed”
ENDIF
This will never assign any values, but will always evaluate the function call. See the ResetRanDev function in the Rulebased Simulation Documentation in the online help for more information.
Revised: 08/02/2021