OpenFOAM

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OpenFOAM

The main configuration file of OpenFOAM (controlDict)
Original author(s)	Henry Weller and Hrvoje Jasak[1]
Developer(s)	CFD Direct Ltd.[2] / OpenCFD Ltd.[3] / Wikki Ltd.,[4] and community
Initial release	10 December 2004; 16 years ago (2004-12-10)[5]
Stable release	v9 20 July 2021 (2021-07-20)[6] / v2106 28 June 2021 (2021-06-28)[7]
Written in	C++
Operating system	Unix / Linux / Windows
Type	Computational fluid dynamics, simulation software, fluid structure interaction
License	GPLv3
Website	openfoam.org / openfoam.com

OpenFOAM (for "Open-source Field Operation And Manipulation") is a C++ toolbox for the development of customized numerical solvers, and pre-/post-processing utilities for the solution of continuum mechanics problems, most prominently including computational fluid dynamics (CFD).

There are three main variants of OpenFOAM software that are released as free and open-source software under the GNU General Public License Version 3. In chronological order, these variants are as follows:

1. OpenFOAM variant by OpenCFD Ltd. (with the name trademarked since 2007^[8]) first released as open-source in 2004. (Note that since 2012, OpenCFD Ltd is an affiliate of ESI Group.)
2. FOAM-Extend variant by Wikki Ltd. (since 2009)
3. OpenFOAM Foundation Inc. variant, released by The OpenFOAM Foundation Inc. (since 2012), and transferred in 2015 to the English company The OpenFOAM Foundation Ltd.

History[]

Flow simulation using OpenFOAM and ParaView for visualization

The name FOAM has been claimed to appear for the first time as a post-processing tool written by Charlie Hill, in the early 90s in Prof. 's group in Imperial College London.^{[citation needed]} As a counter argument^{[verification needed]}, it has been claimed that Henry Weller created the FOAM library for field operation and manipulation which interfaced to the GUISE (Graphical User Interface Software Environment) which was created by Charlie Hill for interfacing to .

Nevertheless, as a continuum mechanics / computational fluid dynamics tool, the first development of FOAM (which became OpenFOAM later on) was virtually always presumed to be initiated by Henry Weller at the same institute by using the C++ programming language rather than the de facto standard programming language FORTRAN of the time to develop a powerful and flexible general simulation platform. From this initiation to the founding of a company called Nabla Ltd, (predominantly) Henry Weller and Hrvoje Jasak carried out the basic development of the software for almost a decade.^[9] For a few years, FOAM was sold as a commercial code by Nabla Ltd.^[10] However, on 10 December 2004, FOAM was released under GPL and was renamed to OpenFOAM.^[11]

In 2004, Nabla Ltd was folded. Immediately afterwards, Henry Weller, Chris Greenshields and Mattijs Janssens founded OpenCFD Ltd to develop and release OpenFOAM.^[12] At the same time, Hrvoje Jasak founded the consulting company Wikki Ltd ^[13] and maintained a fork of OpenFOAM called openfoam-extend, later renamed to foam-extend.

In April 2008, the OpenFOAM development moved to using git for its source code repository.^[14]

On 8 August 2011, OpenCFD was acquired by Silicon Graphics International (SGI).^[15] On 12 September 2012, ESI Group announced the acquisition of OpenCFD Ltd,^[16] this company keeping its assets and notably the OpenFOAM trademark.

In 2014, Weller and Greenshields left OpenCFD and formed CFD Direct Ltd.^[17] OpenFOAM Foundation Ltd whose directors are Henry Weller, Chris Greenshields, and Cristel de Rouvray (the CEO of the ESI Group) handed the maintenance of the OpenFOAM-Foundation variant to CFD Direct.

The following figure summarises the chronological and common development of the main three variants of OpenFOAM software, where the arrows show the directions of functionality transfers, namely:

1. The OpenFOAM variant mainly developed and maintained by OpenCFD Ltd. (a company held by ESI Group since 2012) with a date-of-release identifier (e.g. v1906) (from 2004),
2. The FOAM-Extend Project variant mainly maintained by Wikki Ltd. (from 2009),
3. The OpenFOAM-Foundation variant mainly maintained by CFD Direct Ltd. sequence based identifier (e.g. 6.0) (from 2011).

OpenFOAM Governance[]

aeronautics

In 2018, OpenCFD Ltd. and some of its industrial, academic, and community partners established an administrative body, i.e. OpenFOAM Governance, to allow the OpenFOAM's user community to decide/contribute the future development and direction of their variant of the software.^[18]

The structure of OpenFOAM Governance consisted of a Steering Committee and various Technical Committees. The Steering Committee comprised representatives from the main sponsors of OpenFOAM in industry, academia, release authorities and consultant organisations. The organisation composition of the initial committee involved members from OpenCFD Ltd., ESI Group, Volkswagen, General Motors, FM Global, TotalSim Ltd., TU Darmstadt, and Wikki Ltd.^[19]

In addition, nine technical committees were established in the following areas: Documentation, high performance computing, meshing, multiphase, numerics, optimisation, turbulence, marine applications, and nuclear applications with the members from the organisations of OpenCFD Ltd., CINECA, University of Zagreb, TU Darmstadt, National Technical University of Athens, Upstream CFD GmbH, University of Michigan, and EPFL.^[20]

Structure[]

Software structure[]

The OpenFOAM layout consists of two main directories:

• OpenFOAM-<version>: OpenFOAM libraries whose directory layout is shown in the side-figure
• ThirdParty: A set of third-party libraries

Overview of OpenFOAM software directory structure

Simulation structure[]

OpenFOAM simulations are configured by several plain text input files located across the following three directories:^[21]

• system/:
  • controlDict
  • fvSchemes
  • fvSolution
  • fvOptions (optional)
  • (other dictionaries (configuration files in OpenFOAM))
• constant
  • polyMesh/
  • (other dictionaries)
• 0/ (or another initial time directory)
  • (field files)

Additional directories can be generated, depending on user selections. These may include:

• (result time directories): field predictions as a function of iteration count or time
• postProcessing/: data typically generated by function objects data conversion, e.g. VTK

See also[]

• ParaView an open-source multiple-platform application for interactive scientific visualization
• Computational fluid dynamics
• Finite volume method
• Computer simulation
• Computer-aided design
• Computer-aided engineering

References[]

External links[]

• OpenFOAM Foundation website
• DLR: Future Aircraft Engineering - The Numerical Simulation