Access to some of the profiling and time series options are available on the Profile/Series tab (Figure 1). Each major option or feature will be discussed below.

The Profile Location Option frame needs to be set first before a profile can be extracted from EFDC ViewSlice or any of the profiles shown in the Post Processing form. There are three profile extraction options. The user may either select a value of I to extract the active J cells along that I, or select a value of J to extract the active I cells along that J. The third option is to use a Drape Line, which is a polyline in the same coordinate system as the LXLY data. The I & J's from along the line will be assembled and the profile will be output along that slice.

View Vertical Slice of Grid

The View Vertical Slice of Grid button simply extracts a profile using the settings in the Profile Location Option frame and displays the water column and sediment bed layering (if KB>0). Figure 1 shows an example slice. If the drape line or the I/J extraction falls across inactive cells a gap will be displayed. The water surface displayed is based on the initial condition depths.

Figure 1 Example grid profile plot.

The Time Step History button provides a time series plot of the internal time step that EFDC used for the simulation being reviewed. This is of particular interest only when dynamic time stepping was used for the simulation.

Water Surface Profile

The Water Surface Profile button extracts a profile using the settings in the Profile Location Option frame and then displays the results. Two lines are shown, one for the water surface elevation and the other for the bottom. The user can "scroll" up and down along all the snapshot times by pressing the PgUp and PgDn keys using a snapshot increment of 1. Larger snapshot increments are available using the Shift key for increments of 10 and the Ctrl key for increments of 100. Many other functions are available and may be by pressing F2. See Section Time Series Graphing for a detailed explanation of how to format and use XY Times Series graphs. An example water surface profile is shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2 Example water surface elevation profile with bathymetry.

Mass Balance Tool

The Mass Balance Tool (Figure 3) allows the user to evaluate the total model's sediment and/or toxic balance as well as determining the mass fluxes through each boundary. Time series plots of the mass loading through the flow type boundaries can also be obtained. The mass loading plots can be obtained and used without computing the mass balance.

This tool is computing the mass balance based on model output snapshots. The smaller the output snapshot interval the more accurate the reported results will be.

Figure 3 Mass Balance Tool Options Form.