Introduction

 OpenFOAM® stands for Open Source Field Operation and Manipulation.

 OpenFOAM® is first and foremost a C++ library used to Solve partial
differential equations (PDEs), and ordinary Differential equations
(ODEs)
 It comes with several ready-to-use or out-of-the-box solvers, Pre-
processing utilities and post-processing utilities.
 It is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL).that means it
is freely available and distributed with the source code.
 It can be used in massively parallel computers. No need to pay for
separate licenses.
 It is under active development, its capabilities mirror those of
commercial CFD applications.
 It counts with a wide-spread community around the world (Industry,
academia and research labs).

It has extensive multi-physics capabilities:

 Computational fluid dynamics

 Heat transfer and conjugate heat transfer.
 Combustion and chemical reactions
 .Multiphase flows and mass transfer
 Stress analysis and fluid-structure interaction.
 Particle methods (DEM, DSMC, MD) and lagrangian particles Tracking.
 Dynamic mesh handling, 6DOF solvers, and adaptive mesh
Refinement.
 Computational aero-acoustics, computational electromagnetics,
computational solid mechanics, etc.

How to get best out of this training

 Read the user and programmer’s guide.
 Explore the source code and doxygen documentation(OpenFOAM®
C++ documentation)
 Get familiar with all the applications and utilities available by doing all
the tutorials available in the OpenFOAM® Installation.
Useful links
 User manual, programmer manual and source code.
 The Doxygen manual (http://www.openfoam.org/docs/cpp/).
 CFD-Online OpenFOAM user discussion group (http://www.cfd-
online.com/Forums/openfoam/).
 OpenFOAM® wiki (http://www.openfoamwiki.net).
 OpenFOAM® website (http://www.openfoam.com/).
 OpenFOAM® extend project (http://www.extend-project.de).

Description and Implementation

 Finite Volume Method (FVM) based solver.
 Collocated polyhedral unstructured meshes.
 Second order accuracy in space and time. Many discretization schemes
available (including high order methods).
 Pressure-velocity coupling via segregated methods(SIMPLE and PISO).
 Coupled solvers are under active development.
 Massive parallelism through domain decomposition.
 It comes with it own mesh generation tools.
 It also comes with many mesh manipulation and conversion Utilities.
 Meshes generated using many of the major mesh Generators can be
converted to OpenFOAM® format.
 All components implemented in library form for easy re-use.

Physical Models
Physical modeling library:
  Thermophysical models and physical properties for Liquids and gases.
 Transport/rheology models. Newtonian and non Newtonian viscosity
models.
 Extensive turbulence modeling capabilities (RANS,SRS, DES and LES).
 Lagrangian particle methods (DSMC, MD).
 Discrete particle modeling (DPM, MP-PIC). > VOF method for
multiphase flows
 Interphase momentum transfer models for multiphase flows.
 Combustion, flame speed, chemical reactions, porous media, etc.

Physical Models
 Physical modeling library: Discrete particle modeling (DPM, MP-PIC).
VOF method for multiphase flows.
 Interphase momentum transfer models for multiphase flows.
 Combustion, flame speed, chemical reactions, porous media, etc.

Solvers
OpenFOAM® comes with several ready-to-use or out Of-the box solvers:

 Basic solvers: Laplace, potential flow, passive scalar Transport.

 Incompressible and compressible flows: segregated pressure-based
algorithms (SIMPLE and PISO).
 Heat transfer modeling capabilities: buoyancy-driven flows, conjugate
heat transfer.
 Multiphase flows: Euler-Euler, VOF for free surfaces, multiple phases,
cavitation, phase change.
 Combustion and fire dynamic solvers.
 Stress analysis, electromagnetics, acoustics, MHD, fluid structure
interaction, etc.

You can implement your own solvers.

OpenFOAM® is designed to be a flexible and programmable environment for

numerical simulations by using a high level programming language that is a
direct representation of the equations being solved.
New solvers can be easily implemented using OpenFOAM® high level
programming or equation mimicking, e.g.:

you want to let us say write a solver for this equation so we have to write
this only 5/4 line that’s it and with the help of that you Will be able to code
this so you need not to think what discretization method you are going to use
(either you go with Eulerian, implicit explicit crank -nicholson backward
anything you use for temporal & for let's say convective part second order
central difference of finding scheme quick scheme) you need not to think
while you are developing your solver why because when you say divergence
of flux and it will understand whatever the scheme you going to select it
immediately applies the discretization in that part of equation and all the
discretization schemes are coded in terms of the libraries , that library is
readily available .Based on the calling of particular scheme, it immediately
adds up that part

Same in laplacian part , whatever the scheme you going to add up it is going
to work with that immediately

FVM(finite volume method) and FVC(finite volume calculus)

These imply the concept of implicit and explicit scheme .It means fvm is
implicit and FVC it always explicit that means for FVC whatever the pressure
we going to use for this gradient it comes from the previous time step or
from the guess value and For FVM all this come in terms of the implicit
environment .so whatever the term you require in the implicit ,you type FVM
and whatever the term you require in the explicit way you type as a FVC
that is how you can code any class of the equation so it is called equation
mimicking syntax

Modifying Solvers
 Equation mimicking syntax, achieved through the use o f object
oriented programming, enables users to create custom solvers with
relative ease.
 Users have total freedom to modify existing solvers or use them as
the starting point for new solvers.
 Access to complete source: no secret modeling tricks or black magic.
 OpenFOAM® design encourages code and libraries re-use.
 As solvers can be tailored by a user for a specific need, OpenFOAM is
ideal for research and development.
 Top level solvers are written in few 100 lines of code, and are
optimized for efficiency.

Core Technology
  OpenFOAM® is assembled from components: foundations Libraries
(vectors and tensors algebra, mesh handling, Discretization,
boundary conditions, linear solvers, parallel Computing, etc.),
physical modeling libraries, utilities and Solvers.
 All applications and utilities, are compiled using common
functionality in the collection of libraries distributed with
OpenFOAM®.
 This ensures consistency across the whole of the OpenFOAM®
distribution, rather than having a suite of Packages compiled from
entirely separate source code.
 Transparent solution algorithms which can be viewed by the User,
encouraging better understanding of the underlying Physics.

Standard Solvers
Solver Capabilities

 Incompressible flows
 Multiphase flows
 Combustion
 Buoyancy-driven flows
 Conjugate heat transter
 Compressible flows
 Particle methods (DEM, DSMC, MD)
 Other (Solid dynamics, electromagnetics)

1. Basic’ CFD codes

 LaplacianFoam: Solves a simple Laplace equation, e.g. for Thermal
dffusion in a solid
 potentialFoam: Simple potential flow solver which can be used to
generate starting fields for full Navier-Stokes codes i.e, this solver
can be used to solve potential equations and to create an initial
condition for a complete Navier Stoke equations
 scalar TransportFoam: Solves a transport equation for a passive
scalar

2. Incompressible flow
  simpleFoam: Steady-state solver for incompressible, turbulent flow
 icoFoam: Transient solver for incompressible, laminar flow Of
Newtonian fluids
 pisoFoam: Transient solver for incompressible flow (pisoFoam has
a certain limitation when we go towards highly complex physics.
So there we try to stick to the pimple form later on we try to
explore what is difference between the two
 pimpleFoam: Large time-step transient solver for Incompressible,
flow using the PIMPLE (merged PISO-SIMPLE) algorithm
 nonNewtonian lcoFoam: Transient solver for incompressible,
laminar flow of non-Newtonian fluid
 channelFoam: Incompressible LES solver for flow in a channel
 porousSimpleFoam: Steady-state solver for incompressible,
Turbulent flow with implicit or explicit porosity treatment
 adjointShape OptimizationFoam: Steady-state solver for
incompressible, turbulent flow of non-Newtonian fluids with
optimization of duct shape by applying "blockage" in region
causing pressure loss as estimated using an adjoint formulation
 boundaryFoam: Steady-state solver for incompressible, 1D
Turbulent flow, typically to generate boundary layer Conditions at
an inlet, for use in a simulation
 MRFSimpleFoam: Steady-state solver for incompressible, Turbulent
flow of non-Newtonian fluids with MRF regions
 pimpleDyM Foam:(pimple dynamic foam )Transient solver for
incompressible, flow of Newtonian fluids on a moving mesh using
the PIMPLE(merged PISO-SIMPLE) algorithm
 shallowWaterFoam: Transient solver for inviscid shallow water
equations with rotaticn
 SRFSimpleFoam: Steady-state solver for incompressible, Turbulent
flow of non-Newtonian fluids in a single rotating Frame
 windSimpleFoam: Steady-state solver for incompressible,
Turbulent flow with external source in the momentum Equation.

Note: Simple implies steady state

Pimple or Piso implies transient state.

3. Compressible flow
 rhoSimpleFoam Steady-state SIMPLE Solver for laminar turbulent
RANS flow of compressible fluids
  rhoSimplecFoam Steady-state SIMPLEC solver(C is the character in
simple algorithm) for laminar Or turbulent RANS flow of
compressible fluids
 sonicFoam Transient solver for trans-sonic/supersonic, Laminar or
turbulent flow of a compressible gas
 sonicLiquidFoam Transient solver for trans-sonic/supersonic,
laminar flow of a compressible liquid
 rhoPimpleFoam: Transient solver for laminar or turbulent Flow of
compressible fluids for HVAC and similar applications
 rhoPorousMRFLTSPimpleFoam: Transient solver for Laminar or
turbulent flow of compressible fluids with support for porous
media and MRF for HVAC and similar applications, with local time-
stepping for efficient steady state solution
 rhoPorousMRFSimpleFoam: Steady-state solver for turbulent flow
of compressible fluids with RANS turbulence modelling, implicit or
explicit porosity treatment and MRF for HVAC and similar
applications
 rhoPorousMRFPimpleFoam: Transient solver for laminar or
turbulent flow of compressible fluids with support for porous
media and MRF for HVAC and similar applications
 rhoCentralFoam: Density-based compressible flow solver based on
central-upwind schemes of Kurganov and Tadmor (in compressible
environment either you work with the density base algorithm or a
pressure base algorithm. If you are working with a very high
speed flows so sometime the density based algorithm facilitate
much faster convergence as compared to the pressure base so
we stick to the density base type of the solver)
 rhoCentralDyMFoam: Density-based compressible flow solver
based on central-upwind schemes of Kurganov and Tadmor with
moving mesh capability and turbulence Modelling
 sonicDyMFoam Transient solver for trans-sonic/supersonic, laminar
or turbulent flow of a compressible gas with mesh motion

Note: (whenever there is a DyM that means it has a capability of

mesh movement)

4. Heat transfer and buoyancy-driven flows

 buoyantSimpleFoam: Steady-state solver for buoyant, turbulent
flow of compressible fluids
 buoyantPimpleFoam: Transient solver for buoyant, turbulent flow
of compressible fluids for ventilation and heat-transfer
  chtMultiRegionFoam: Combination of heat Conduction Foam and
buoyantFoam for conjugate heat transfer between a solid region
and fluid region
 buoyantSimpleRadiationFoam: Steady-state solver for buoyant,
turbulent flow of compressible fluids, including radiation, for
ventilation and heat-transfer
 buoyantBaffleSimpleFoam: Steady-state solver for buoyant,
turbulent flow of compressible fluids using thermal baffles
 buoyantBoussinesqPimpleFoam: Transient solver buoyant,
turbulent flow of incompressible fluids
 buoyantBoussinesqSimpleFoam: Steady-state solver for buoyant,
turbulent flow of incompressible fluids
5. Electromagnetics
 electrostaticFoam: Solver for electrostatics
 magneticFoam: Solver for the magnetic field generated by
permanent magnets
 mhdFoam: Solver for magnetohydrodynamics (MHD):
incompressible, laminar flow of a conducting fluid under the
influence of a magnetic field
6. Stress analysis of solids
 solidDisplacementFoam: Transient segregated finite-volume
solver of linear-elastic, small-strain deformation of a solid body,
with optional thermal diffusion and thermal stresses
 solidEquilibrium DisplacementFoam: Steady-state segregated
finite-volume solver of linear-elastic, small-strain deformation of a
solid body, with optional thermal diffusion and thermal stresses
7. Direct simulation Monte Carlo methods
 dsmcFoam: Direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMO) solver for 3D,
transient, multi- species flows
8. Direct numerical simulation (DNS) and large eddy simulation (LES)
 dnsFoam: Direct numerical simulation solver for boxes of
isotropic turbulence
9. Molecular dynamics methods
 mdEquilibration Foam: Equilibrates and/or preconditions
molecular dynamics systems
 mdFoam: Molecular dynamics solver for fluid dynamics
10. Multiphase flow
 bubbleFoam: Solver for a system of 2 incompressible fluid phases
with one phase dispersed, e.g. gas bubbles in a liquid
 cavitatingFoam: Transient cavitation code based on the
homogeneous equilibrium model from which the compressibility
of the liquid’ vapour “mixture” is obtained
 compressiblelnterFoam: Solver for 2 compressible, isothermal
immiscible fluids using a VOF (volume of fluid) phase-fraction
based interface capturing approach
 interFoam: Solver for 2 incompressible, isothermal immiscible
fluids using a VOF (volume of fluid) phase fraction based interface
capturing approach
 interDyMFoam: Solver for 2 incompressible, isothermal
immiscible fluids using a VOF (volume of fluid) phase fraction
based interface capturing approach, with optional mesh motion
and mesh topology changes including adaptive re-meshing
 interMixingFoam Solver for 3 incompressible fluids, two of which
are miscible, using a VOF method to capture the interface
 interPhaseChangeFoam Solver for 2 incompressible, isothermal
immiscible fluids with phase-change (e.g. cavitation). Uses a VOF
(volume of fluid) phase-fraction
 based interface capturing approach
 LTSInterFoam: Local time stepping (LTS, steady-state ) solver for 2
incompressible, isothermal immiscible fluids using a VOF (volume
of fluid) phase-fraction based interface capturing approach
 MRFInterFoam: Multiple reference frame (MRF) solver for2
incompressible, isothermal immiscible fluids using a VOF (volume
of fluid) phase-fraction based interface capturing approach
 MRFMultiphaselnterFoam: Multiple reference frame (MRF) solver
for incompressible fluids which captures the interfaces and
includes surface-tension and contact-angle effects for each phase
 multiphaselnterFoam: Solver for incompressible fluids which
captures the interfaces and includes surface-tension and contact-
angle effects for each phase
 porousinterFoam: Solver for 2 incompressible, isothermal
immiscible fluids using a VOF (volume of fluid) phase fraction
based interface capturing approach, with explicit handling of
porous zones
  settlingFoam: Solver for 2 incompressible fluids for simulating the
setting of the dispersed phase
 twoLiquidMixing Foam: Solver for mixing 2 incompressible fluids
 twoPhaseEulerFoam: Solver for a system of 2 incompressible fluid
phases with one phase dispersed, e.g. gas bubbles in a liquid

Note wherever you see interFoam , it has VOF things enabled in it.

11.Combustion

 chemFoam Solver for chemistry problems – designed for use on single

cell cases to provide comparison against other chemistry solvers –
single cell mesh created on-the-fly fields created on the fly from the
initial conditions
 coldEngineFoam Solver for cold-flow in internal combustion engines
 dieselEngineFoam Solver for diesel engine spray and combustion
 dieselFoam Solver for diesel spray and combustion
 engineFoam Solver for internal combustion engines
 fireFoam Transient Solver for Fires and turbulent diffusion flames
 PDRFoam Solver for compressible premixed/partially premixed
combustion with turbulence modeling
 reactingFoam Solver for combustion with chemical reactions
 rhoReactingFoam Solver for combustion with chemical reactions using
density based thermodynamics package
 XIFoam Solver for compressitble premixed/partially premixed
combustion with turbulence modelling

12.Particle-tracking flows

 coalChemistryFoam Transient solver for: - compressitble, turbulent

flow, with – coal and limestone parcel injections, energy source, and –
combustion
 icoUncoupledKinematicParcelDyMFoam Transient solver for the
passive transport of a single kinematic particle cloud
 IcoUncoupledKinematicParcelFoam Transient solver for the passive
transport of a single kinematic particle cloud
 porousExplicitSourceReacting ParcelFoam: Transient PISO solver for
compressible, laminar or turbulent flow with reacting multiphase
Lagrangian parcels for porous media, including explicit sources for
mass, momentum and energy
  reactingParcelFilmFoam Transient PISO solver for compressible,
laminar or turbulent flow with reacting Lagrangian parcels, and
surface film modelling
 reactingParcelFoam Transient PISO solver for compressible, laminar or
turbulent flow with reacting Lagrangian parcels
 LTSReacting ParcelFoam Local time stepping (LTS) solver for steady,
compressible, laminar or turbulent reacting and non-reacting flow with
multiphase Lagrangian parcels and porous media, including explicit
sources for mass, momentum and energy
 uncoupledKinematicParcelFoam Transient solver for the passive
transport of a single kinematic particle cloud

Note: couple of the solvers maybe you will not get directly in the Distributed
version but it's source code will be available online in certain class of the
hosting

Mesh Generation
 OpenFOAM supports unstructured meshes of cells of any shape
 cells in OpenFOAM can have any number of faces and faces can have
any number of edges
 Such complete freedom on cell shape gives greater flexibility for the
generation of meshes around complex shapes, embedded refinement,
etc.

Two types of mesh

1.blockMesh

 For simple geometries, there is blockMesh, a multi-block mesh

generator that generates meshes of hexahedra from a text
configuration file.
 The OpenFOAM distribution contains numerous example configuration
files for blockMesh to generate meshes for flows around simple
geometries, e.g. a cylinder, a wedge, etc.

2.snappyHexMesh

 For complex geometries, there is snappyHexMesh that meshes to

surfaces from CAD, but also allows the user to define simple
geometric entities such as boxes, spheres, planes, etc.
  The snappyHexMesh utility can run in parallel, so can generate
meshes of 100s of millions of cells, given a sufficient number of CPUs
and memory.
(let’s say you have to generate the mesh on entire car AC or
something where
you are expecting millions of mesh size then it not possible to create
a mesh on a single PC then for that purpose we require the parallel
computing environment and we create a very sophisticated mesh.)
 It performs automatic load balancing when generating mesh in
parallel, i.e. redistributes cells across the CPUs, so the final mesh has
approximately the same number cells per processor, for optimal
performance during simulation.

Mesh Conversion
OpenFOAM accepts meshes generated by any of the major mesh
generators:

 fluent3DMesh ToFoam: Converts a Fluent mesh to OPENFOAM®

förmat
 fluentMesh ToFoam: Converts a Fluent mesh to OPENFOAM® format
including multiple region and region boundary handling
 foamMeshToFluent: Writes out the OPENFOAM® mesh in Fluent mesh
format
 cfx4ToFoam: Converts a CFX 4 mesh to OPENFOAM® format
 ansysToFoam: Converts an ANSYS input mesh file, exported from I-
DEAS, to OPENFOAM® format
 ideasUnvToFoam:J-Deas unv format mesh conversion
 kivaToFoam: Converts a KIVA grid to OPENFOAMO format
 plot3dToFoam: Plot3d mesh
 Esh (ascii/formatted format)converter
 sammToFoam: Converts a STAR-CD (V3) SAMM mesh to OPENFOAM®
format
 Star4ToFoam: Converts a STAR-CD (v4) PROSTAR mesh into
OPENFOAM® format

Mesh Manipulation
OpenFOAM is supplied with several utilties that perform mesh checking and
manipulation.

 checkMesh: Checks validity of a mesh(checkMesh give you the idea

either that mesh is valid for openFoam or not. It tries to check
different aspect of the meshing like its aspect ratio , skewness,
volume either it negative or positive volume okay if
it is not suitable type mesh then OpenFOAM immediately gives you
the error that this mesh is not suitable in open form environment and
you have to modify this mesh)
 mergeMeshes: Merge two meshes
 mirrorMesh: Mirrors a mesh around a given plane
 setSet: Manipulate a cellface/point set or zone interactively >
 setsToZones: Add pointZones/faceZones/cellZones to the mesh from
similar named pointSets/face Sets/cellSets
 topoSet: Operateson cellSets/face Sets/pointSets through a dictionary
 rotateMesh: Rotates the mesh and fields from the n1 direction to the
n2 direction
 moveDynamicMesh: Mesh motion and topological mesh changes
utility
 moveEngineMesh: Solver for moving meshes for engine calculations
 createPatch: Utility to create patches out of selected boundary faces.
Faces come either from existing patches or from a faceSet
 autoPatch: Divides external faces into patches based on (user
supplied) feature angle

If mesh manipulation utility was not there then to change the mesh one
has to firrst modify the mesh from scratch then perform other steps. let’s
say you have put the skew line direction in X but now you want to
change or rotate it to Y direction so either you go back to the Mesh and
change the mesh but with the Elbow rotate mesh immediately it will
rotate.

Turbulence Models
OpenFOAM offers a large range of methods and models to simulate
turbulence.

 Reynolds-average simulation (RAS)

 Large eddy simulation (LES)
  Detached eddy simulation (DES)
 Direct numerical simulation (DNS)

More detail visit: http:/www.openfoam.org/features/turbulence.php

The type of models implemented in this library are those found in rheology
to describe fluids with a complex structure, e.g. polymers, sludges,
foodstuffs, etc.

 Newtonian: Linear viscous fluid model

 powerlaw: Power-law nonlinear viscous model
 InterfaceProperties: Models for the interface, e.g. contact angle, in
multiphase simulations

Transport Models
 Transport models that are primarily temperature dependent, e.g. for
gases, are implemented as part of the thermophysical modelling
library.
 OpenFOAM is distributed with a huge library of thermophysical
models and properties that can read from standard libraryTables,
including liquid and gas properties, combustion and flame speed
models.

(as far as transport property is concerned what we require to set a

Reynolds number for that we need the density and the viscosity and
here we are going to work with the ratio of viscosity and density ie.
kinematic viscosity So only kinematic viscosity is required to set a
transport property but if you talk about the compressible flow then we
require crtain more properties for that basic thermophysical models are
available)

Basic thermophysical models

 hPsiThermo: General thermophysical model calculation based on

enthalpy and compressibility
 hsPsiThermo: General thermophysical model calculation based
on sensible enthalpy and compressibility
  ePsiThermo General thermophysical model calculation based on
internal energy and compressibility
 hRhoThermo General thermophysical model calculation based
on enthalpy
 hsRhoThermo General thermophysical model calculation based
on sensible enthalpy
 pureMixture General thermophysical model calculation passive
gas mixtures

More detail visit: http:/www.openfoam.org/features/thermophysical.

Php

Lagrangian Particle Tracking

 A variety of fluid-flow problems deal with more than one phase and
OpenFOAM® has a Lagrangian particle tracking library for this kind of
problem.
 The basic Lagrangian library provides an efficient parallelised
implementation of tracking and coupling with the Eulerian phase
 The Lagrangian implementation is used as a basis for particle-based
flow methods in OpenFOAM® such as direct simulation Monte-Carlo
(DSMC) and molecular dynamics (MD).
 coalCombustion: Coal dust combustion modeling dieselSpray: Diesel
spray and injection modeling
 distributionModels : Particle distribution function modeling
 Dsmc: Direct simulation Monte Carlo method modeling
 Lagrangian: Basic Lagrangian, or particle-tracking, solution scheme
 Lagrangianintermediate: Particle-tracking kinematics,
thermodynamics, multispecies reactions, particle forces, etc.
 potential: Intermolecular potentials for molecular dynamics
 molecule: Molecule classes for molecular dynamics
 molecularMeasurements: For making measurements in molecular
dynamics
 solidParticle: Solid particle implementation

The ParaView Post-processor

The paraView İs basically an open source and in the OpenFOAM they created
wrapper over the paraview and it’s called paraFoam so we’re going to work
with the paraFoam but in the background paraView is working .It uses the
vtk toolkit format but when we work with the paraFoam you need not to
create the foamtovtk and create the foamtovtk utility but it tries to add up
very quickly with the help of the paraFoam so para view İs our post
processor

 ParaView uses the Visualisation Toolkit (VTK) as its data processing

and rendering engine and can therefore read any data in VTK format.
 OpenFOAM includes the foamToVTK utility to convert data from its
native format to VTK format, which means that any VTK-based
graphics tools can be used to post-process OpenFOAM® cases.(let’s
say you want the post processing in different post processer e.g
Ansys EnSight fluent environment then you have to convert the
foam data and foam mesh to the fluent and when you run certain
utilities it tries to create a case and data file you add up that case
and data file and do the post processing in your post processor like
Ansys EnSight , Tecplot etc)
 The user therefore has the choice of using the reader module or data
converter. Further details about ParaView can be found at
http:/www.paraview.org

Run-time Post-processin
1. To check whether the simulation is going in the right direction or not
for that we use the co-processing or run-time processing.Users can
configure an OpenFOAM case to carry out post processing
automatically while the simulation is running using function objects.
The range of available functionality is extensive:
 Files of sampled data can be written for graph plotting
 files of force coefficients can be written
 files containing elements for visual post-processing, e.g. cutting
planes and isosurfaces can be written.
2. One major advantage is that this post-processing can run in parallel.
3. Certain utilities
 fieldAverage: temporal averaging of fields.
 fieldMinMax: writes min/max values of fields.
  fieldValue: averaging/integration across sets of faces/cells,e.g. for
flux across a plane.
 readFields: loads fields to the database for post-processing.
 surfacelnterpolateFields: generates surfaceFields from volFields for
further postprocessing.
 Forces: calculates pressure/viscous forces and moments.
 forceCoeffs: calculates lift, drag and moment coefficients.
 sampledSet: data sampling along lines, e.g. for graph plotting.
 Probes: data probing at point locations.
 isoSurface: generation of an isosurface of given fields in one of the
standard sample formats, e.g. VTK.
 cuttingPlane: generation of a cuttingPlane with field data in one of
the sample formats.
 sampledPatch: generation of a surface of a patch with field data in
one of the sample formats.
 systemCall: execute any system call, e.g. email you to tell you your
job is finished.
 abortCalculation: Watches for presence of the named file in the case
directory and aborts the calculation if it is present.
 partialWrite: allows registered objects, e.g. fields, to be written at
different times (frequencies).
 nearWallFields: generates a volField with boundary values from
interpolated internal field. streamLine – generates
 streamlines: in one of the sample formats.
 timeActivatedFileUpdate: modifies case settings at specified times in
a simulation.
 Write RegisteredObject: writes registered objects, e.g. fields that are
not scheduled to be written in the application, i.e. created with
NO_WRITE.

Third-party Post-processing
OpenFOAM is supplied with reader modules and data converters for post-
processing with other third party products.

 foamDataTo Fluent: Translates OpenFOAM® data to Fluent format

 foamToEnsight: Translates OpenFOAM® data to EnSight format
 foamToTecplot360: Tecplot binary file format writer
 foamToVTK: Legacy VTK file format writer
BASICS OF LINUX COMMANDS
Opening a Terminal

 On Windows:
With WSL Ubuntu, launch the “Ubuntu” App
 On native ubuntu linux:

Ctrl-Shift-T (to open gnome-terminal) OR

Search for terminal and click on the app icon

Terminals have Command Prompts

1. Command line means typing on a terminal prompt

(prompt is your username@computername:~$

$ whoami <enter>

(shows your username)

2. Command execution usually throws an output and gives back the prompt

3. Prompts are denoted by $ symbol

$ Exit <enter>

(closes the terminal window)

Directory (Folder) Structure

1. Top most directory is called the “root” directorv.

Denoted by “/” (forward slash).

2. Child directories are separated by /

a. /home / sunthar

(windows uses backslash “\”)

3. Special directories
a. /bin, /usr/bin, etc.: binary applications
b. etc: configuration files
 c. /home: private user folders (not visible to others)
d. /tmp: temporary scratch space
e. /var: run time files used by the system

ONavigating Directories on Command Line

All terminal commands are executed inside a specific directory

1.Find your current location (present working directory)

$ pwd

2. Change to parent directory (..)

$ cd ..

$ pwd

3. Change to your home directory (SHOME, ~) [any of the following will

work]

cd $HOME

cd ~
 cd

Absolute Directory Path and Sister Directories

Entire name of a directory from the root / is called the path

1. Path of your home directory is

/home/sunthar

2. Change directly to distant directory

$ cd /usr/local/bin

$ pwd

3. Change to a sister directory bin

$ cd /home

$ cd ../tmp
Listing Directories and Files
1. List out the sub-directories and files under the current directory

$ ls

$ cd /

$ ls

(lists the contents of the root '/' directory)

Clear Terminal Screen

Once a while the terminal window gets busy with lots of text, not needed
anymore.

To bring it to a clean slate, we can ‘clear’ the screen (equivalent to ‘cls’ of

Windows command prompt)

$ Clear

Creating and Destroying Directories

1. Create (make) a new directory
$ mkdir docs (makes directory named docs)
$ cd docs
2. Destroy (remove) an empty directory:
 $ cd ..

$. rmdir docs. (Remove directory named docs)

3. Remove directory and all its contents (warning: cannot be recovered)

$. mkdir -p docs/plots/two

$ rm -fr docs

$. ls

Command Line Completion

To avoid typing Linux prompt can complete some words for you

$ mkdir -p docs/plots/two

$ ls docs

$. ls do<tab> P<tab><tab>

( automatically types rest of the words by pressing tab key

Screen: ls docs/plots/two/

At the press of every <tabs, any unique words will be filled to result in

$ ls docs/plots/two

Command and Arguments

1. All command line text consist of a command and a series of
arguments

$ <command> <arg1> <arg2>

2. Some arguments can be an option (or a key) with a prefix of ‘minus’ or

‘hyphen’ sign:
$. <command> -<key> <arg>
3. Two or more options can be combined with a single 'minus

$ rm -fr docs is the same as

$. rm -f -r docs
 4. Variables can be stored and retrieved

$. MYNAME=sunthar

$. echo $MYNAME

Your First OpenFOAM Solver

1. Create a directory for all your OpenFOAM runs
$ mkdir -p $FOAM_RUN

$. cd $FOAM_RUN

$. pwd

$. cp -r

$FOAM_TUTORIALS/incompressible/simpl
eFoam/pitzDaily

$. cd pitzDaily

$ blockMesh

$ simpleFoam
Viewing results in paraView

$. paraFoam

Viewing Contents of Text files

All of OpenFOAM input files are written in plain text. To quickly view the
contents use one of following

1. Entire file is concatenated on terminal

$ cat constant /physicalProperties

2. File can be seen one by one page

$ more system/controlDict

(will quit the more command and return to prompt)

3. File can be scrolled by line or by page, up or down

$ less system/ fvSchemes