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Software · UV Radiation Simulation

UVSim3D

Three-dimensional UV dose analysis for water treatment and photochemical reactors

Computes the UV fluence rate distribution inside UV and VUV reactors in three dimensions, using physics-based radiation models and numerical analysis, so lamp arrangement and performance can be verified at the design stage.

What is UVSim3D?

UVSim3D is engineering software that computes the ultraviolet fluence rate distribution inside UV and VUV reactors in three dimensions.

In water treatment, ultrapure water (UPW), advanced oxidation processes (AOP) and photochemical reactor design, the essential task is to quantify a UV dose distribution that varies sharply in space with lamp power, arrangement and water quality.

UVSim3D computes the fluence rate inside the reactor using physics-based radiation models and numerical methods, and returns results in a form engineers can take straight into design and performance evaluation.

  • Physics-based UV dose computation
  • Handles large 3D meshes
  • CFD coupling
  • Automation and batch processing
  • Ready for design, research and verification

Problems it solves

  • It is hard to know how UV dose is actually distributed inside a reactor
  • Comparing performance as lamp count, power and arrangement change is difficult
  • Design verification that relied on experiment needs replacing with quantitative computation
  • CFD results and UV dose computation need to be coupled
  • Fast, reproducible UV computation is needed on large meshes

UVSim3D addresses these through computation rather than experiment.

Key features

3D UV dose computation
  • · UV fluence rate (W/m²) at any point inside the reactor
  • · LP and MP lamps supported
  • · Single-wavelength and multi-wavelength (VUV/UV) modelling
Lamp arrangement and performance
  • · Compare different lamp arrangement scenarios
  • · Accounts for dimming and lamp efficiency (eta)
  • · Includes shadowing between lamps
Large-scale computation
  • · Handles hundreds of thousands to tens of millions of points
  • · OpenMP multicore parallel computation
  • · VTKHDF format for large meshes
CFD coupling
  • · Uses CFD meshes (VTU, CGNS and others) directly
  • · Writes fluence rate back as a mesh field
  • · Combines with residence time to compute UV dose
Automation and extensibility
  • · CLI batch execution
  • · Reproducible simulation from JSON configuration files
  • · Python wrapper for post-processing and parametric studies

How it computes

UVSim3D runs a computation in four steps.

  1. 01
    Define the reactor

    Lamp specification, arrangement, wavelength band and water quality characteristics.

  2. 02
    Load the computation points

    Supply them as text or as a CFD mesh.

  3. 03
    Run the radiation model

    Compute UV fluence rate using MPSS, MSSS or DO models.

  4. 04
    Export results

    Save per-point UV fluence rate as text, VTU, VTKHDF and other formats.

Where it applies

  • UV disinfection reactors for water and wastewater
  • Ultrapure water (UPW) processes
  • Advanced oxidation processes (AOP)
  • Photochemical reactor design and research
  • UV/VUV lamp performance evaluation
  • Design verification in labs and engineering teams

System environment

Operating system
Windows / Linux / macOS
Input formats
TXT, VTU, VTKHDF, CGNS
Output formats
TXT, VTU, VTKHDF
Parallelism
Multicore CPU (OpenMP)

Simulation results

See how lamp layout and wavelength shape the dose

Examples of UV and VUV reactors computed with UVSim3D. The decay around each lamp and the overlap between them show where the dead zones are, and holding the geometry fixed while changing the wavelength shows how far the radiation reaches.

254nm fluence rate on the centre plane of the Delft pilot reactor — decay around each lamp and the overlap their spacing produces
254nm fluence rate on the centre plane of the Delft pilot reactor — decay around each lamp and the overlap their spacing produces
185nm fluence rate across a VUV photoreactor — strong absorption confines it to a thin shell around each lamp
185nm fluence rate across a VUV photoreactor — strong absorption confines it to a thin shell around each lamp
254nm fluence rate in the same reactor — the longer reach lets neighbouring lamps overlap
254nm fluence rate in the same reactor — the longer reach lets neighbouring lamps overlap

Continue exploring

CAE Utilities

Focused tools that cut the work around an analysis.

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Technical documentation

Settings, application scope and the computational models, on the documentation site.

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Reviewing the layout of a UV system?

Tell us the geometry and the light source conditions and we will confirm what is applicable.