README first

News - From June 2010, I started to spend money on Google AdWords to maximise my effort to share experiences by writing this blog.

Welcome to my blog on CFD, numerical modelling and parallel programming. Though relevant things are included, the CFD part of this blog focuses on the packages SALOME, Code_Saturne and ParaView etc. The complete content can be directed by the Labels list on the right side.


All the posts here are kept updated. Following or subscribing a blog is a good idea if it really helps. Up to March 2012, as reported by Google, there are 90 friends who are following or subscribing my posts using Google.

The most popular posts are summarised as follows

1. Installation of SALOME on Ubuntu

The latest SALOME version is 6.3.1. However I haven't tried this version; I am still using the 5.1.x.

For 5.1.x the latest version is 5.1.6. The complete instruction, "Installation of SALOME 5.1.3 on Ubuntu 10.04 (64 bit)", should help when install SALOME 5.1.x onto Ubuntu; at least according to feedbacks, this works up to 5.1.4 onto Ubuntu 10.04 (32/64 bit). The tips also suit Ubuntu 9.10, if all packages are updated in the system.

For Ubuntu 9.10, an older post is "Installation of SALOME 5.1.2 on (K)Ubuntu 9.10 64 bit". The notes might be slightly outdated.

If preferring Ubuntu 9.04, it is also easy to install SALOME by only following "Installation of SALOME 5.1.1 on Ubuntu 9.04". The post actually helps up to the latest version 5.1.3.

For those who still use the old 4.* versions of SALOME, "Polishing GUI of older SALOME versions" is recommended to read.

2. SALOME tutorials

"CFD tutorial: laminar flow along a 2D channel - Part I" is a brief tutorial on using SALOME to do the geometry modelling and meshing.

More examples are still on the way.

3. Installation of Code_Saturne on Ubuntu

The latest Code_Saturne 2.1.0 is much easier to compile and install than ever. An instruction on this version is on the way. By the way I also successfully ported this version onto Windows 7.

Since version 2.0 Code_Saturne started to adopt the typical source build and install procedure on Linux. By following "Installation of Code_Saturne 2.0-rc1 on Ubuntu 10.04 (64 bit)" I am confident it would be an easy job for you. In the meantime, if you are also a SALOME user, I strongly recommend you to read "Compile Code_Saturne with SALOME binary libraries" in order to reuse the binary libraries already shipped with SALOME.

Two slightly outdated but helpful posts are "Installation of Code_Saturne 2.0.0 on Ubuntu 9.04" and "Installation of Code_Saturne 2.0-rc1 on Ubuntu 9.10".

You can also try to test installing Code_Saturne with apt-get. Please read "apt-get, the ideal way to install the software onto Ubuntu".

The instruction on installation of the last stable version, 1.3.3, was written in "Installation of Code_Saturne 1.3.3 on Ubuntu 9.04". On the other hand, for the version 1.4.0 the installation procedure is quite similar to that of 1.3.3, except 1.4.0 turned to use PyQt4 and Qt4. Please check "Installation of Code_Saturne 1.4.0 on Ubuntu 9.04" to see how to use (Py)Qt4 instead of the python-tk and tix.

4. Code_Saturne tutorials

"CFD tutorial: laminar flow along a 2D channel - Part II" gives a brief tutorial on how to apply Code_Saturne to solve a CFD problem.

More examples are still on the way.

5. Installation and usage of ParaView

Installation of ParaView is relatively easier and please read "Installation of ParaView 3.6.1 on Ubuntu 9.04". The usage of ParaView is briefly illustrated by an example in the article "Post-processing with ParaView".

For the latest version of ParaView, please refer to its official site.

6. GPGPU acceleration with CUDA techniques

A basic idea of using NVIDIA CUDA and the template library thrust is shown in "A simple test on the efficiency of thrust". An example to use CUDA practically is "Apply CUDA to solve a 1D heat transfer problem".

Last but not least, any comments are sincerely welcome and your support is always my motivation. The visitors here are from all over the world. See the visits map overlay below, which is provided by Google Analytics for the half-a-year period from January 2010.

SALOME version 6.4.0 is released

CEA/DEN, EDF R&D and OPEN CASCADE are pleased to announce SALOME version 6.4.0. Please visit news for more details.

This is a public minor release that contains improvements and bug fixes against SALOME version 6.3.1 released in July 2011.

Proceed to the download page to get this release for a go. Note that the Windows version 32bit is also available to download at the same page.

Install OpenFOAM 2.0.x on openSUSE 12.1

The instruction on OpenFOAM installation from albertopassalacqua.com is valuable to read

Install OpenFOAM 2.0.x on openSUSE 12.1

Code_Saturne 2.1.0 has been released

On 31 Oct, 2011, Code_Saturne 2.1.0 (intermediate version) has been released and is available for downloading. The details of the new features are described on the corresponding news page.

The selective major features include:

• Packaging: Code_Saturne is now provided as a single package, grouping all existing libraries (BFT, FVM, MEI, libsyrcs). It also includes preliminary source code for SALOME plugin (CFDSTUDY module and Code_Aster coupling).
• Code coupling: Code_Saturne 2.1 can be coupled with SYRTHES 4.0.0-10 (at least). SYRTHES 4.0 is a complete rewrite of SYRTHES 3.4 with many new features and should shortly be released. Code_Saturne 2.1 also contains preliminary code for Code_Aster coupling (more to come on this topic in next versions).
• User interface: both the script user interface and the graphical user interface have been simplified and completed to enhance user experience. Just give a try to the new runcase script (and its Python overloading) and to the new features of the graphical interface (more to come also on this topic in next versions).
• New mesh readers: Code_Saturne pre- and post- processing has been updated to support CGNS 3.1 and MED 3.0 format. MED 3.0 is compatible with SALOME 6.3.
• Documentation: the user manual has been slightly improve and a Doxygen documentation of the sources is now available. An installation manual is now provided too.
• Configuration: a configuration file can be completed, either globally or by user, to setup some runtime options like the scratch directory, an optional mesh database or SYRTHES 4.0 version to be used.
• Automatic V&V: a tool for automatic run of Code_Saturne has been developped, enabling the user to automatically run simulations, plot graphs and receive a PDF report by e-mail. It can be very useful for automatic Verification & Validation, though it is still in the very early stage of development.

ParaView 3.12.0 RC-3 available for download

ParaView 3.12.0 Release Candidate 3 binaries are available for download on the official page http://paraview.org/paraview/resources/software.html. It is a bug-fix release and the details can be found at http://www.paraview.org/Bug/changelog_page.php?version_id=85.

Release of SALOME version 5.1.6 and ParaView 3.12.0 RC-2

SALOME version 5.1.6 is a public maintenance release for series 5.x of SALOME platform. The version provides several major and minor bug fixes against SALOME version 5.1.5 released in December 2010.

SALOME 5.1.6 can be downloaded from the official page http://www.salome-platform.org/downloads/salome-v5.1.6.

On the other hand ParaView 3.12.0 Release Candidate 2 binaries are already available for download on the official page http://paraview.org/paraview/resources/software.html.

ps, Firefox 7.0 has also been released yesterday and it becomes really faster than the previous versions :)

I am looking for a job

News - I greatly appreciate your comments below and surprisingly plenty of information and valuable advices came to me during the last one year. Thanks to all your concern, I finally accepted a thermal expert position in ABB USA (www.abb.com) and am sitting in North Carolina.

I particularly thank the three companies in England, France and America that I personally consulted for and their encouraging recommendations. I cherish the experiences I have obtained from the part-time working with them.

Within my PhD study, I have published eight research papers. Four of them are in leading journals and their links are as follows:

• Numerical prediction of local hot-spot phenomena in transformer windings. Applied Thermal Engineering. 2012 April; 36: 96-105. DOI: 10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2011.11.054
• Computational fluid dynamics calibration for network modelling of transformer cooling oil flows - part I heat transfer in oil ducts. IET Research Journals - Electrical Power Applications (formerly IEE Proceedings). 2012 January; 6(1): 19-27. DOI: 10.1049/iet-epa.2011.0004
• Computational fluid dynamics calibration for network modelling of transformer cooling flows - Part II: pressure loss at junction nodes. IET Research Journals - Electrical Power Applications (formerly IEE Proceedings). 2012 January; 6(1): 28-34. DOI: 10.1049/iet-epa.2011.0005
• Prediction of the oil flow distribution in oil-immersed transformer windings by network modelling and computational fluid dynamics. IET Research Journals - Electrical Power Applications (formerly IEE Proceedings). 2012 February; 6(2): 82-90. DOI: 10.1049/iet-epa.2011.0122

I am graduating in September 2011 with a PhD degree from School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Manchester. I am looking for a numerical modelling job.

I spent the past more than three years on the CFD simulations which are coupling between electric, thermal and fluid dynamic fields, from which I have accumulated rich experiences on modelling packages such as SALOME, Code_Saturne, Elmer, ParaView and COMSOL etc. I share experiences in this blog, which has also gained worldwide popularity.

I have been programming in C/C++, C#, VB.NET and Matlab since 2002. I also have experiences in Python (the script widely used for automation of modelling and the software such as SALOME and ParaView etc) and Fortran (the user routine definition for Code_Saturne) etc. Meanwhile, probably as a bonus, I am a fan of open-source software, Linux and Mac OS X. I even wrote device drivers for Linux and ported the MySQL client tool running on desktops onto embedded Linux platforms.

I bear high interests in numerical modelling and would like to pursue a career in this field. If you have relevant opportunities, please drop me an email (salad00 at gmail dot com). I really appreciate your help very much.

SGI Acquires Maker of OpenFOAM

SGI, a trusted leader in technical computing, announced that it has completed the acquisition of OpenCFD Ltd., the leader in open source computational fluid dynamics.

SGI Acquires Maker of Open Source CFD Software

SALOME version 6.3.1 is released

The maintenance version SALOME 6.3.1 has been released, which contains planned bug fixes against the version 6.3.0 released in June 2011. SALOME 6.3.1 does not include any improvements or new features comparing to the version 6.3.0.

Please download from the official page to have a go.

New software updates including OpenFOAM

Recently there have been some interesting software updates including

1. OpenFOAM version 2.0.0

OpenCFD released OpenFOAM version 2.0.0 and many significant developments have been made. In parallel to the release of OpenFOAM 2.0.0, the git repository was updated to 2.0.x.

2. GeekoCFD 2

GeekoCFD 2 has been released.

3. VMware Fusion 3.1.3

VMware Fusion 3.1.3 (416484) has been release at the end of May. Bugs were fixed and more importantly, Ubuntu 11.04 has been officially supported. The previous version needed patches for its VMware tool because of its incompatibility to Linux Kernel 2.6.37/38.

4. Firefox 5

Mozilla greatly shortened its new version release periods. As a convention Microsoft IE team sent Mozilla a cupcake for launching Firefox 5.


Firefox has been updated automatically to this latest version on my Mac and all extensions work very well. On Windows there is only one exception, IE Tab Plus.

SALOME version 6.3.0 is released

In the good news, CEA/DEN, EDF R&D and OPEN CASCADE are pleased to announce SALOME version 6.3.0. It is a public release that contains the results of planned major and minor improvements and bug fixes against SALOME version 5.1.5 released in December 2010.

SALOME version 6.3.0 provides the results of the porting of SALOME to the newer versions of 3rd party pre-requisite products.

In addition, SALOME 6.3.0 includes several new modules:

• PARAVIS (new post-processing module based on Kitware’s ParaView application)
• HEXABLOCK (hexahedral meshing by creating of a model of the blocks)
• HOMARD (the adaptation of the mesh generated by the Homard solver for the SALOME platform)
• New sample modules and tutorials
  

This new release of SALOME introduces new features and improvements:

• New Geometry operations
• Create edge by length
• Create vertex by length
• Improved "Sub-shapes selection" dialog box
• Analytical curve definition
• Glue edges
• Projection
• Unpublish objects
  
• New Mesh operations
• Copy mesh
• Convert to/from quadratic on sub-meshes
• New Mesh controls
• Over-constrained faces / volumes
• Bare border faces / volumes
• Element diameter 2D / 3D
• New Mesh hypotheses and algorithms
  
• Viscous layers
  
• Advanced size maps in BLSurf
• Enforced meshes with Ghs3D
• Use existing 1D / 2D elements
• Controls Distribution operations in Mesh module: plot in 2D viewer, show histogram in 3D viewer, dump to the file
  
• Improved behavior of clipping planes in Mesh module
• Mesh measurements: Minimum distance, Bounding box
• Preview on most of Geometry and Mesh operations
• Visibility icons in the Object browser
• New view operations
• Rotate view 90° clockwise / counterclockwise
• Zoom at point
  
• Dump study to the single Python script file
  
• And more ... see SALOME 6.3.0 Release Notes for details

The latest installation packages can be retrieved from the official download page, and pre-compiled binaries are also available.

For Ubuntu users it is recommended to download the latest package for Debian 6.0 Squeeze; although there is only a 64 bit version, why not take the chance to upgrade to 64 bit? For other Ubuntu distributions, in detail David suggested downloading packages for

• Ubuntu 9.04: Debian 4.0 Etch or 5.0 Lenny
• Ubuntu 9.10: Debian 4.0 Etch or 5.0 Lenny
  
• Ubuntu 10.04: Debian 5.0 Lenny or 6.0 Squeeze
  
• Ubuntu 10.10: Debian 5.0 Lenny or 6.0 Squeeze
  
• Ubuntu 11.04: Debian 6.0 Squeeze

Next SALOME version 6.3.0 due in May 2011

According to David's message on the SALOME forum, the next major release of SALOME will be SALOME v6.3.0 and the planned release date is May 2011. [1]

Part of the improvements and features this new version will bring to us can be referred from [2], listed as

• Automatic meshing of boundary layers
• SMESH: Histogram of the quality controls
• Option Single/Multi file dump
• "RemoveFromStudy" Function
• Hide/Show Icon (as in paraview)
• GEOM: Performance enhanced when manipulating large models
• SMESH: Mesh common borders
• SMESH: detection of over-constrained elements
• SMESH: create a new mesh from a selected group or from selected elements
• SMESH: Create a clipping plane on several groups

Additionally the MED library version will be 3.0. This is a major change since the API is not compatible with the previous version. This version will read MED files of both format 2.2 and 3.0 and will write format 3.0.

In version 6.3.0 it will be possible to define viscous layer (inflation layers in ANSYS) [3]. It will be defined as an additional hypothesis for the 3D algorithms Netgen, GHS3D and Hexahedron, and the parameters will include:

• Total thickness
• Number of layers
• Stretch factor

The example of viscous layers defined on tetra and hexa meshes, David posted on the SALOME forum, is


Certainly there will also be lots of bug fixes. We are absolutely enthusiastic with the new version and looking forward to its release.

You may like a blog presented in this way

Can you have a try to access Free your CFD via the link below

http://code-saturne.blogspot.com/view

Is it fancy?

These dynamic views brought by Google include Flipcard, Mosaic, Sidebar, Snapshot and Timeslide. For more details you can refer to Dynamic Views for Readers.

Share some helpful articles

1. Installation of Code_Saturne on Mandriva

A very helpful wiki page on how to compile and install Code_Saturne onto Mandriva has been contributed as follows

http://wiki.mandriva.com/fr/index.php?title=Code_Saturne

Since it is a French instruction, I also paste the Google translated English version here, as

The Google translated English version

2. A practical Code_Saturne study example

It is interesting to read a CFD example which combines the usage of SALOME, Code_Saturne and ParaView.

http://www.caelinux.org/wiki/index.php/Contrib:Claws/Real_world_study_CodeSaturne

3. Installing OpenFOAM 1.7.x on openSUSE 11.4

For those who want to install OpenFOAM onto openSUSE, probably this article is interesting.

Installing OpenFOAM 1.7.x on openSUSE 11.4

4. Compiling OpenFOAM 1.7.x on Mac OS X Snow Leopard

For those who want to use OpenFOAM on Mac OS X, the article could be helpful.

Compiling OpenFOAM 1.7.x for OS X 10.6

I hope these articles help you.

ParaView 3.10.0 is released

The ParaView team has announced the availability of the ParaView 3.10.0 final binaries for download on the ParaView download page.

http://paraview.org/paraview/resources/software.html

I repost the Release Notes from the email list as follows:

ParaView 3.10

This release features notable developments, including mechanisms to incorporate advanced rendering techniques, improved support for readers and several usability enhancements and bug fixes.

For the 3.10 release, we have added 60 new readers. The new readers include: ANSYS, CGNS, Chombo, Dyna3D, Enzo, Mili, Miranda, Nastran, Pixie, Samrai, Silo, and Tecplot Binary. A full listing of supported readers can be found in the ParaView Users Guide. We also added the ability for developers to create ParaView reader plugins from previously developed VisIt reader plugins. You can find a full guide on how to do this on the VisIt Database Bridge: http://www.paraview.org/Wiki/VisIt_Database_Bridge.

With this release we have rewritten the ParaView User's Guide and are making it freely available for the first time. The complete guide can be obtained in the help system or online at:
http://paraview.org/Wiki/ParaView/Users_Guide/Table_Of_Contents.

We have included a Python-based calculator which makes it possible to write operations using Python. The Python calculator uses NumPy, which lets you use advanced functions such as gradients, curls, and divergence easily in expressions. Also the NumPy module is packaged in the ParaView binary and is importable from the ParaView Python shell.

There should also be a marked performance improvement for users dealing with large multi-block datasets. We have cleaned up the rendering pipeline to better handle composite datasets, avoiding the appending of all blocks into a single dataset as was done previously.

To better utilize multiple cores on modern multi-core machines, by default ParaView can now run using a parallel server, even for the built-in mode. This enables the use of all the cores for parallel data processing, without requiring the user to start a parallel server. ParaView binaries will also be distributed using an MPI implementation, making this feature available to users by simply downloading the binaries. Since this is an experimental feature, it is off by default, but users can turn it on by checking the Auto-MPI checkbox in the application settings dialog.

Additionally, the 3.10 release includes several usability enhancements. 3D View now supports smart context menus, accessed by right-clicking on any object in the 3D View to change its color, representation, color map and visibility. Left-clicking on an object in the 3D View makes it active in the pipeline browser. Within the spreadsheet view, sorting is now supported and an advanced parallel sorting algorithm ensures that none of the benefits of the spreadsheet view, such as streaming and selection, are sacrificed. Python tracing and macro controls are no longer hidden on the Python shell dialog and instead are now easily found on the Tools menu.

For developers interested in adding support for advanced multi-pass rendering algorithms to ParaView, this release includes a major refactoring of ParaView's rendering pipeline. View and representations have been redesigned and users should see improved performance in client-server mode from reduced interprocess communication during rendering.

LANL's MantaView interactive ray tracing plugin has been restructured to make it easier to use. Version 2.0 of the plugin is now multi-view capable and no longer requires ParaView to be run in a client/server configuration. Similarly both of LANL's streaming aware ParaView derived applications have been merged into ParaView proper in the form of a new View plugin. The underlying streaming algorithms have been rewritten to be more usable and extensible. Both plugins are available in standard binary package for the first time in this release.

For an exhaustive list of the new features and bug-fixes, please refer to the change log at: http://www.paraview.org/Bug/changelog_page.php.

As always, we rely on your feedback to make ParaView better. Please use http://paraview.uservoice.com/ or click on the "Tell us what you think" link on paraview.org to leave your feedback and vote for new features.

Stable version Code_Saturne 2.0.1 is released

I am glad to let you know that the production release version Code_Saturne 2.0.1 can be downloaded from

http://research.edf.com/research-and-the-scientific-community/softwares/code-saturne/download-code-saturne-80059.html

I am curious that all the source code were packaged into zip format. When trying to compile the source code, unfortunately, an error could occur as

:/$ ./configure
Error: permission denied
# the solution
:/$ chmod +x configure

The easy solution is modifying the attributes of the configure file.

By this I succeeded to compile bft package; however when compiling fvm, I have got another error shown as

checking for bft version >= "1.0.0"... configure: error: in `/home/wu/saturne_packages/version 2.0.1/fvm-0.15.2':
configure: error: compatible bft version not found

I checked and found that the "make install" script of bft didn't install proper header files into the destination directory (by default, /usr/local/include). I guess this is a bug to fix, though the headers can also be copied manually.

I didn't try the rest of the compilation yet.

SALOME version 5.1.5 is released

Please read the piece of news.

CEA/DEN, EDF R&D and OPEN CASCADE are pleased to announce SALOME 5.1.5. It is a public maintenance release that contains the results of planned major and minor improvements and bug fixes against SALOME version 5.1.4 released in July 2010.

This new release of SALOME includes the following important new features and improvements:

• New operations in Geometry module: Automatic coordinate vectors and other.
• Export CAD models to VTK native format in Geometry module.
• New operations in Mesh module: Split hexahedrons to 24 tetrahedrons, Remove orphan nodes, Create boundary elements, Duplicate nodes / elements.
• Improved Quadrangle mapping meshing algorithm: new Reduced (layers) type of meshing.
• New filters in Mesh module: Coplanar faces.
• Graduated axes trihedron in the OCC viewer.
• Customizable shortcuts for some most frequently used operations.
• New features in YACS module.
• New TUI functions.
• Multi-language support (plus French resources).
• And more … see SALOME 5.1.5 Release Notes for details

SALOME 5.1.5 supports Debian 4.0 Etch 32bit and 64bit; both are Ubuntu compatible. The latest installation wizard packages can be retrieved from the download page of the official site. I expect the tutorial "Installation of SALOME 5.1.3 on Ubuntu 10.04 (64 bit)" would still be helpful when install the latest SALOME 5.1.5 onto Ubuntu 10.10. I also look forward to receiving your testing feedback on this.

OpenFOAM 1.7.1 is released

It is nice to read the piece of news that OpenCFD just released OpenFOAM version 1.7.1. The version optimises correctly using gcc-4.5.0 and has been verified to run on OpenSuSE-11.3.

Another good aspect is the debian packages prepared for this version, created for Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. Briefly, to install OpenFOAM in Ubuntu, execute the commands

# add the openfoam source into the source list
:/$ sudo echo "deb http://www.openfoam.com/download/ubuntu lucid main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list
# refresh the package list
:/$ sudo apt-get update
# Install OpenFOAM
:/$ sudo apt-get install openfoam171
# Install Paraview
:/$ sudo apt-get install paraviewopenfoam380

Please refer to this page for more information on the installation onto Ubuntu.

SALOME version 5.1.4 is released

In the good piece of news, CEA/DEN, EDF R&D and OPEN CASCADE are pleased to announce SALOME 5.1.4. It is a public maintenance release that contains the results of planned major and minor improvements and bug fixes against SALOME version 5.1.3 released in December 2009.

This new release of SALOME includes the following important new features and improvements:

• Improved Filling algorithm in Geometry module.
• Mesh scaling operation.
• Split all 3d mesh elements (volumes) to the tetrahedrons.
• Change sub-meshing order for the concurrent sub-meshes.
• Find mesh element closest to the specified point.
• Modify point markers in Mesh and Post-Pro modules.
• Sort table data (Post-Pro module).
• Using of two vertical axes in the Plot2d viewer.
• Keyboard free interaction style in OCC viewer.
• New features in YACS module.
• And more … see SALOME 5.1.4 Release Notes for details

SALOME 5.1.4 supports Debian 4.0 Etch 32bit and 64bit; both are Ubuntu compatible. The latest installation wizard packages can be retrieved from the download page of the official site. As feedback from users, the tutorial "Installation of SALOME 5.1.3 on Ubuntu 10.04 (64 bit)" also works with SALOME 5.1.4 on Ubuntu 10.04.

We also look forward to the corresponding Windows version.

SALOME 5.1.4 for tests on windows available

As announced by Adam on 2nd July, 2010, SALOME version 5.1.4 for tests on windows is already available. Please refer to the download page and the how-to-compile page for more details.

OpenFOAM 1.7.0 is released

A major, new release of version 1.7.0 of the OpenFOAM open source CFD toolbox is released. The new package can be downloaded from the official page. Version 1.7.0 is distributed: (1) as Debian packs created for Ubuntu 10.04 LTS; (2) as source code for compilation on other Linux systems. Please read the announcement, "OpenCFD release OpenFOAM® version 1.7.0", to know more.

The following introduction on the release of OpenFOAM 1.7.0 is borrowed from here.

OpenFOAM-1.7.0 is the latest release of OpenFOAM that contains new features both from OpenCFD’s development version of OpenFOAM and the repository 1.6.x distribution. This release passes our standard tests and the tutorials have been broadly checked. Please report any bugs by following the link: http://www.openfoam.com/bugs.

GNU/Linux version

This release of OpenFOAM is distributed primarily in 2 ways: (1) as a Debian pack containing binaries and source; (2) from a source code repository.

The Ubuntu/Debian pack is available for 32 and 64 bit versions of the 10.04 LTS operating system using the system compiler and libraries that will be installed automatically from standard Debian packs.

To use the source version, we provide a source pack of third-party packages that can be compiled on the user’s system. This does not include gcc, since the system installed version is typically sufficient, but includes paraview-3.8.0, openmpi-1.4.1, scotch_5.1, metis-5.0pre2, ParMetis-3.1 and ParMGridGen-1.0.

Library developments

There have been a number of developments to the libraries to support the extension of functionality in solver and utility applications.

Core library

• Large number of code refinements and consistency improvements to support other developments.

Turbulence modelling

• Wall function boundary conditions:
• New mutWallFunction continuous wall function,
• New mutLowReWallFunction continuous wall function,
• New nutWallFunction continuous wall function,
• New nutLowReWallFunction continuous wall function,
• Standard wall functions, based on k, now renamed nutkWallFunction and mutkWallFunction,
• omegaWallFunction now includes laminar blending function.
• Conjugate heat transfer boundary conditions:
• New turbulentTemperatureCoupledBaffleMixed BC,
• New turbulentTemperatureCoupledBaffle BC.

Thermo-physical models

There has been a set of developments to redefine the thermodynamics in some solvers in terms of sensible enthalpy instead of total (i.e. including chemical) enthalpy. This was done to improve the handling of thermodynamics in the case of partially-premixed or non-premixed combustion systems, or to handle systems with non-unity Lewis number.

• New hsPsiThermo thermophysical model calculation based on sensible enthalpy hs and compressibility psi.
• New hsRhoThermo thermophysical model calculation based on hs and density rho.
• New hsCombustionThermo thermophysical model calculation for a combustion mixture based on hs and psi.
• New hsPsiMixtureThermo thermophysical model calculation for a mixture based on hs and psi.
• New hsReactionThermo thermophysical model calculation for a complex reacting mixture based on hs.

DSMC

• 1D and 2D planar simulations now possible by specifying empty patches in the usual way.
• New MixedDiffuseSpecular wall boundary condition added.
• New pressure field measurement.
• New measurement of velocity slip and temperature jump.

Dynamic mesh

• New sixDoFRigidBodyDisplacement six degree-of-freedom, fluid coupled rigid body motion, applied as a boundary condition to a patch in the pointDisplacement field for dynamic mesh cases. The motion may have any number of restraints (springs and dampers) and constraints (reductions in degrees-of-freedom) applied. Restraints include linearAxialAngularSpring, linearSpring, sphericalAngularSpring and tabulatedAxialAngularSpring. Constraints include fixedAxis, fixedLine, fixedOrientation, fixedPlane and fixedPoint.

Numerics

• MULES now supports sub-cycling on moving meshes for interface capturing VoF (volume of fluid) calculations.
• Developments to TimeActivatedExplicitSource, a class that allows a source to be applied to an equation according to an input dictionary at run-time, that can be switched on at particular times and within particular regions of the mesh, using cellZones.

Solvers

A number of new solvers have been developed for a range of engineering applications. There has been a set of improvements to certain classes of solver that are introduced in this release.

New solvers

• fireFoam: Transient solver for fires and turbulent diffusion flames.
• rhoPorousMRFPimpleFoam: Transient solver for laminar or turbulent flow of compressible fluids with support for porous media and MRF for HVAC and similar applications. Uses the flexible PIMPLE (PISO-SIMPLE) solution for time-resolved and pseudo-transient simulations.
• chtMultiRegionSimpleFoam: Steady-state version of chtMultiRegionFoam.
• porousSimpleFoam: Steady-state solver for incompressible, turbulent flow with implicit or explicit porosity treatment.
• interMixingFoam: Solver for 3 incompressible fluids, two of which are miscible, using a VoF method to capture the interface.
• porousInterFoam: Solver for 2 incompressible, isothermal immiscible fluids using a VoF phase-fraction based interface capturing approach.
• simpleWindFoam: Steady-state solver for incompressible, turbulent flow with external source in the momentum equation to approximate, e.g. wind turbines; located in tutorials, with associated turbineSiting test case.

Modifications to multiphase and buoyant solvers

• Multiphase and buoyant flow solvers now solve for , rather than the static pressure p. This change is to avoid deficiencies in the handling of the pressure force / buoyant force balance on non-orthogonal and distorted meshes.
• Improvements to boundary conditions and pressure referencing in closed domains have been developed to avoid the problems encountered in previous attempts to decompose pressure for buoyant flow.
• The following solvers have been modified for p_rgh: fireFoam buoyantBoussinesqPimpleFoam, buoyantBoussinesqSimpleFoam, buoyantPimpleFoam, buoyantSimpleFoam, chtMultiRegionFoam, chtMultiRegionSimpleFoam, compressibleInterDyMFoam, compressibleInterFoam, interDyMFoam, porousInterFoam, MRFInterFoam, interFoam, interPhaseChangeFoam, multiphaseInterFoam, settlingFoam, twoLiquidMixingFoam.

Modifications to solvers for sensible enthalpy

• The following solvers have been modified to solve for hs (instead of h): dieselEngineFoam, dieselFoam, reactingFoam, rhoReactingFoam, coalChemistryFoam, porousExplictSourceReactingParcelFoam, reactingParcelFoam.

Modifications to steady-state compressible solvers

• Boundedness to the thermodynamics is ensured by limiting the density, rather than the pressure. This improves convergence by maintaining consistency between the pressure gradient and momentum changes.
• Removed the Sp “boundedness” correction in the convection term from the momentum equation.
• The following solvers have been modified with this change: rhoSimpleFoam, buoyantSimpleFoam, chtMultiRegionSimpleFoam.

Other modifications

• Added diffusion number limit to the time-step correction in chtMultiRegionFoam.
• Reformulated pressure correction during phase change to maintain boundedness of pressure in cavitatingFoam.

Boundary conditions

New boundary conditions have been introduced to support new applications in OpenFOAM.

• Added new time varying boundary conditions.
• Added new velocity inlets and wall boundary conditions: cylindricalInletVelocity, swirlFlowRateInletVelocity, translatingWallVelocity.
• Added boundary conditions for wind/atmospheric simulation: atmBoundaryLayerInletEpsilon, atmBoundaryLayerInletVelocity, fixedShearStress.

Utilities

There have been some utilities added and updated in this release.

New utilities

• foamToTecplot360: Tecplot binary file format writer.
• IFCLookUpTableGen: Infinitely-fast chemistry (IFC) look-up table generator that calculates the infinitely-fast chemistry relationships as a function of ft for a given fuel.

Updated utilities

• gmshToFoam: adapted for msh2.1 and 2.2 format.
• snappyHexMesh: lower memory usage by pre-balancing and non-blocking transfers.
• blockMesh: proper spline edges.
• setSet: handling of faceZoneSet, cellZoneSet, pointZoneSet.
• splitMeshRegions: option to use existing cellZones only for split.
• changeDictionary: allow wildcards in changeDictionaryDict.

Post-processing

Post-processing has been extended particularly to function objects, the on-the-fly post-processing system.

• New fieldValues function object, allows spatial averaging, sum, min/max calculations to be made on fields in sets of cells or faces in the geometry
• New surfaceInterpolateFields function object to generate surface fields from volume fields where required
• New sampledTriSurfaceMesh surface type for surface sampling function object
• New readFields function object controls the loading of fields from time directories for further post-processing

New tutorials

There is a large number of new tutorials to support the new solvers in the release.

• combustion/fireFoam/les/smallPoolFire2D
• combustion/reactingFoam/ras/counterFlowFlame2D
• compressible/rhoPorousMRFPimpleFoam/mixerVessel2D
• heatTransfer/chtMultiRegionSimpleFoam/multiRegionHeater
• incompressible/pimpleDyMFoam/wingMotion
• incompressible/porousSimpleFoam/angledDuctExplicit
• incompressible/porousSimpleFoam/angledDuctImplicit
• incompressible/simpleWindFoam/turbineSiting
• lagrangian/porousExplictSourceReactingParcelFoam/parcelInbox
• lagrangian/porousExplictSourceReactingParcelFoam/verticalChannel
• multiPhase/interDyMFoam/floatingObject
• multiPhase/interMixingFoam/laminar/damBreak
• multiPhase/interPhaseChangeFoam/cavitatingBullet