OpenFOAM
The OpenFOAM® (Open Field Operation and Manipulation) CFD Toolbox is a free, open source CFD software package produced by OpenCFD Ltd. It has a large user base across most areas of engineering and science, from both commercial and academic organisations. OpenFOAM has an extensive range of features to solve anything from complex fluid flows involving chemical reactions, turbulence and heat transfer, to solid dynamics and electromagnetics. It includes tools for meshing, notably snappyHexMesh, a parallelised mesher for complex CAD geometries, and for pre- and post-processing. Almost everything (including meshing, and pre- and post-processing) runs in parallel as standard, enabling users to take full advantage of computer hardware at their disposal.
By being open, OpenFOAM offers users complete freedom to customise and extend its existing functionality, either by themselves or through support from OpenCFD. It follows a highly modular code design in which collections of functionality (e.g. numerical methods, meshing, physical models, …) are each compiled into their own shared library. Executable applications are then created that are simply linked to the library functionality. OpenFOAM includes over 80 solver applications that simulate specific problems in engineering mechanics and over 170 utility applications that perform pre- and post-processing tasks, e.g. meshing, data visualisation, etc.
Solver Capabilities
- Incompressible flows
- Multiphase flows Combustion
- Buoyancy-driven flows
- Conjugate heat transfer
- Compressible flows
- Particle methods (DEM, DSMC, MD)
- Other (Solid dynamics, electromagnetics)
Parallel Computing
OpenFOAM employs domain decomposition, with its decomposePar utility, to split the mesh and fields into a number of sub-domains and allocate them to separate processors. Applications can then run in parallel on separate sub-domains, with communication between processors with software that uses the MPI communications protocol. While OpenFOAM is shipped with the OpenMPI library, any MPI library, such as those optimised for particular hardware platforms, can be used with OpenFOAM by “plugging” it in through the Pstream interface.
