Next CTH Training: September 21st-24th @ Sandia National Labs
An in-person CTH training class will be held at Sandia National Labs Sept. 21st-24th, 2026 in CSRI/90 9am-4pm. The cost is free and open to all branches of the DoW, other government agencies, all government contractors, and LANL. To register for the class, please contact the points of contact below. Registration is limited to 40 students in-person and will close August 21st.
The training will use CTH v13.1. All students are required to have access to CTH at their institutions and will need to bring laptops. WiFi access will be available to remotely connect for in-class exercises. Older versions of CTH are sufficient for the majority of the training but will be missing some of the newer features.
Points of Contact for Registration:
Kevin Ruggirello kruggir@sandia.gov
Greg Bristol gjbrist@sandia.gov
Liz Deer ecdeer@sandia.gov
Training Highlights
The training is focused on the CTH Shock Physics Analysis suite which includes preprocessing, the CTH simulation code, and post-processing tools. A general understanding of using the command line interface and HPC queueing systems are required. External tools like Paraview or Sandia Analysis Workbench (SAW) will not be covered. Those tools have their own trainings available which cover using them with CTH.
The training will take users through the basics of setting up problems, the various models available for material and explosive modeling, and general analysis tools available. Adaptive Mesh Refinement will be covered in depth along with advanced Spymaster for post-processing. Additional topics covered are below.
Synthetic X-Ray Generation
Create highly realistic direct digital analogues of test radiographs to compare simulations with test data.
Other Training Features
- Advanced Data Harvests with Tracer Regions: (a space-based quantity of interest harvest method)
- Advanced Input Deck Coding with Aprepro: to add C type programming, variable management, looping conditionals, and automatic unit conversions to CTH
- Direct 3D Poly-Surface Insertion into 2D: Use built-in slice planes to convert complex 3D STL geometry into 2D executable problems without hand defining them in diatom