USACE/CHL Surface Water Modeling System (SMS) Information Page

This page is intended to provide information about current version of SMS, best version, if not the current one, to use with CHL models and how to get SMS license information for USACE employees and contractors.

Several CHL models are included in the Surface Water Modeling System (SMS) and, therefore, CHL supports its use for various hydrodynamic modeling applications.  Included in SMS is the CHL developed/supported Adaptive Hydraulics (AdH), Advanced Circulation (ADCIRC), Coastal Modeling System (CMS), Particle Tracking Model (PTM), Steady State Spectral Wave (STWAVE), Wave Model (WAM), and the Coastal Storm Modeling System (CSTORM-MS)

SMS is developed by Aquaveo (www.aquaveo.com) in close collaboration with CHL engineers and scientists.  As such, CHL may provide free license codes to USACE users and their contractors.  To obtain a license, please email SMS@erdc.usace.army.mil with your name, affiliation, and SMS security string (provided during the SMS installation process).  Non-USACE users should consult the Aquaveo website for use and purchase options.

Aquaveo ultimately maintains the development and release schedule for SMS.  Although CHL tests the development versions of SMS, we do not control the release of updated versions of SMS.  It is possible that a SMS release will not function properly with some CHL model features. Therefore, we will provide on this website information about versions of SMS to use with CHL models when issues have been found with the latest release version of SMS.

USACE users on an Ace-IT managed network/machine must obtain SMS through the App Portal.  Ace-IT allows only two versions of a software on the portal at any time.  CHL is now included in the approval process for upgrading SMS versions on the portal and will include any changes to these available versions on this page.

Important Updates 

For importance updates to SMS please refer to the specific CHL model site (links above) and the Aquaveo SMS documentation and Release Notes at https://xmswiki.com/wiki/SMS:Release_Notes_SMS.

Ace-IT App Portal versions available

  • SMS 13.4
  • SMS 13.3
  • SMS 13.2 

Recommended versions for use with

  • AdH – 13.3.07
  • ADCIRC – 13.2.14 (updated training material is available on Aquaveo’s website)
  • CMS - 13.3.16
  • PTM - 13.2.14
  • STWAVE – 13.2.14 (updated training material is available on Aquaveo’s website)