Abstract
A case study on the use of open source (OS) software development in chemical engineering research and education is presented here. The multiphase computational fluid dynamics software MFIX is the object of the case study. The verification and validation steps required for constructing modern computational software and the advantages of OS development in those steps are discussed. The infrastructure used for enabling the OS development of MFIX is described. The impact of OS development on computational research and education in gas-solids flow and the dissemination of information to other areas such as geotechnical and volcanology research are demonstrated. It is shown that the advantages of OS development methodology were realized: verification by many users, which enhances software quality; the use of software as a means for accumulating and exchanging information; and the facilitation of peer review of the results of computational research.