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.

Share interesting stories

Life is not only CFD and there is no clear divisions in life either. I like to share interesting things which I have been looking at; would you be interested in them also?

1. This Tech Bubble Is Different

I have been a programmer for years and I still have a clear idea on the internet bubble around 2000. Time flies and shortly after that one, we are in a next bubble which involves Facebook, Twitter and Groupon etc. If you like computer and internet technology, probably this article from Bloomberg would interest you.

This Tech Bubble Is Different

2. Business owner casts reasonable doubt on accuracy of speed cameras

Computation is not only in research. I like the smart guy in this piece of news; how about you?

Business owner casts reasonable doubt on accuracy of speed cameras

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.