# Calculating the residence time in ParaView

**URL:** https://discourse.paraview.org/t/calculating-the-residence-time-in-paraview/3371
**Category:** ParaView Support
**Created:** [January 20, 2020, 11:14am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/calculating-the-residence-time-in-paraview/3371 "2020-01-20T11:14:38Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![alkali](https://discourse.paraview.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/9f8e36/32.png) [@alkali](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/alkali)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2020, 11:14am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/calculating-the-residence-time-in-paraview/3371/1 "2020-01-20T11:14:38Z")

</div>

Hello,

I have an unsteady flow area and would like to calculate the residence time in ParaView.

My current procedure is as follows:

1. Temporal Interpolator
2. point source as a plane
3. use particle path filter
4. use a slice filter on the Particle Path filter with a defined z-coordinate at the end of the flow area
5. extract the particle age times as a csv
6. creating the residence time distribution in Excel

This works for me. I have only one problem and that is, as soon as the particle moves out of the flow area, the whole particle path is deleted or disappears.

So far I have solved the problem by artificially extending the flow area with very low values for the velocity, so that the particles are still recorded.

Is there a better solution for this?  
Probably there is no way to make the particles run only up to a certain z-coordinate, is there? Like similar to the Termination Time.

Many greetings

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/user_avatar/discourse.paraview.org/mwestphal/32/17_2.png) [@mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2020, 4:31am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/calculating-the-residence-time-in-paraview/3371/2 "2020-01-21T04:31:14Z")

</div>

ParticlePath does not have this option afaik. It should be possible to add it though.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![oumnion](https://discourse.paraview.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/o/cdc98d/32.png) [@oumnion](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/oumnion)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2022, 4:44am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/calculating-the-residence-time-in-paraview/3371/3 "2022-02-25T04:44:00Z")

</div>

Hello alkali,

I was wondering if you were able to fix your issue and calculate the residence time in Paraview. I am facing some issues and couldn’t follow the steps you published.

Thanks

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/user_avatar/discourse.paraview.org/mwestphal/32/17_2.png) [@mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2022, 9:00am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/calculating-the-residence-time-in-paraview/3371/4 "2022-02-25T09:00:07Z")

</div>

Please open your own topic explaining what you tried and what is not working.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![oumnion](https://discourse.paraview.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/o/cdc98d/32.png) [@oumnion](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/oumnion)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2022, 11:21pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/calculating-the-residence-time-in-paraview/3371/5 "2022-02-28T23:21:01Z")

</div>

Thank you. I have opened my own topic [here](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/calculate-residence-time-using-paraview/9074)