Use CanteraError

[CyberDrudge]

Fixes part of #569

Implemented use of ct.CanteraError in ic_engine.py

[bryanwweber]

This looks like a good start, keep going with the other files!

[bryanwweber]

@speth This change causes the Refinement limit reached error to be raised and the example effectively doesn't work. Prior to this change, as we've noted, the logic in the loop was not correct but at least it produced a figure at the end. What did you mean if sim.reinitialize() is used, the try-except isn't necessary? Won't the try be needed to catch when the time step isn't fine enough? Should the max time step even be adjusted here at all?

I think we need to figure out how to fix this example before this PR can be merged, otherwise we'd distribute broken examples 😄

[speth]

The reason it doesn't work is because the logic in the loop isn't right -- the if not solved check should be outside the loop. Right now, it gets hit on the first failure, and you never make a second pass through the loop.

I think my comment about sim.reinitialize() is well beyond the scope of this PR. Because of the way the CVODES integrator works, where it can need function evaluations at times other than the specified output times, changing parameters of the ODE outside of the ODE function (where the time that the integrator chooses to evaluate is actually known) can lead to failures. One way around this is to call reinitialize after any such discontinuous change. The other is to set the parameters from a function that is called as part of the ODE evaluation, e.g. the way we allow MassFlowController to have a mass flow rate as a function of time.

[bryanwweber]

@CyberDrudge Please see the first part of @speth's comment. I missed the indentation there!

[bryanwweber]

@CyberDrudge I rebased the commits to combine a few of them and updated it to the current master branch. This PR was merged by d9b95b2 Thank you for doing this work!

[bryanwweber]

@CyberDrudge Since you have this experience now, I'd encourage you to go through the rest of the places noted in #569 to fix those as well 😄

[CyberDrudge]

Sure, I'll work on them as soon as i'll get some time.