OpenCFD Releases OpenFOAM v1.5

By DE Editors

Berkshire, UK-based OpenCFD released version 1.5 of OpenFOAM (Open Field Operation and Manipulation) as parts of the company’s open source CFD Toolbox. It can simulate anything from complex fluid flows involving chemical reactions, turbulence and heat transfer, to solid dynamics, electromagnetics, and the pricing of financial options. OpenFOAM is produced by OpenCFD Ltd and is freely available and open source, licensed under the GNU General Public Licence.

The core technology of OpenFOAM is a flexible set of efficient C++ modules that can be used to build solvers to simulate specific problems in engineering mechanics; utilities, to perform pre- and post-processing tasks ranging from simple data manipulations to visualization and mesh processing; and libraries, to create toolboxes that are accessible to the solvers/utilities, such as libraries of physical models.

OpenFOAM is supplied with numerous pre-configured solvers, utilities and libraries and so can be used like any typical simulation package. However, it is open, not only in terms of source code, but also in its structure and hierarchical design, so that its solvers, utilities and libraries are fully extensible.

OpenFOAM uses finite volume numerics to solve systems of partial differential equations ascribed on any 3D unstructured mesh of polyhedral cells. The fluid flow solvers are developed within a robust, implicit, pressure-velocity, iterative solution framework, although alternative techniques are applied to other continuum mechanics solvers. Domain decomposition parallelism is fundamental to the design of OpenFOAM and integrated at a low level so that solvers can generally be developed without the need for any ’parallel-specific’ coding.

Applications of Version 1.5 include multiphase flow and cavitation, buoyancy-flow and heat transfer, high speed flows and even molecular dynamics, accompanied by a range of new example cases. It includes an automatic mesh generator and developments to utilities for mesh extrusion, mesh splitting, coupled patch handling, mesh conversion, handling of multiple particle clouds, case initialization, and postprocessing.

New additions to model libraries include radiation modeling, rotating frame of reference, Lagrangian particle tracking, molecular dynamics, and a mesh motion solver for flexible mesh scaling.

To download OpenFOAM 1.5, got to OpenCFD.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company's website.