OpenFOAM v14 Training

OpenFOAM Training Autumn (Fall) 2026

CFD Direct has released their schedule for OpenFOAM Training in Autumn 2026.  Our training covers OpenFOAM from The OpenFOAM Foundation, fully updated for OpenFOAM v14 — the best version of OpenFOAM.  We manage, develop and produce OpenFOAM, so we know not only what it contains but also how it works and why it works the way it does.  We have the most comprehensive OpenFOAM Course Catalogue with 5 courses spanning 11 days and 900 pages of course manuals: Essential CFD, Applied CFD, Productive CFD (1 & 2) and Programming CFD.  Courses can be booked via the OpenFOAM Training Schedule page, which includes discounts for booking multiple courses.  The current schedule is shown below.

Why OpenFOAM Training?

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is challenging, which we address with our training courses, as explained below.

• CFD involves complex scientific software which is difficult to operate despite the useful tools (and more) we provide to make CFD easier to do.  The operation of OpenFOAM is covered mainly on our Essential CFD and Applied CFD courses. 
• CFD is just a modern calculation method used to analyse challenging fluid dynamics problems.  Our Productive CFD courses teaches how to go from a “real world” problem to a CFD simulation, and extract the right data to deliver a reliable, correct analysis. 
• CFD can involve fluid motion, forces, heat, thermodynamics, chemistry and solids, across a very broad range of applications.  Consequently, there is a common need for customised coding in C++ in OpenFOAM, which our Programming CFD course teaches.

Teaching In Person

We provide both in-person (classroom) training and virtual (instructor-led) online training.  Our Productive CFD and Programming CFD courses are delivered exclusively in the classroom, with courses scheduled in Cologne, Germany, Chicago, USA and Houston, USA .  We also provide in-person training on-site at academic organisations (e.g. Oak Ridge National Laboratory) and to industry (e.g. NASA).

The general consensus is that virtual training is good, but in-person is better.  In-person is more engaging, with participants able to ask more questions, including during breaks.  Participants leave with better understanding and greater confidence, and enjoy sharing experiences with one another.  The prevalence of virtual training is simply an after-effect of a forced change due to Covid-19.  But from the beginning in 2008, we delivered OpenFOAM training in person.  It is better.

Internet Search is Not Good Enough

Training has become increasingly important as the quality of Internet Search steadily declines.  The Internet has always been a fairly unreliable source of information about OpenFOAM, due to a high proportion of misleading, incorrect and outdated content from online forums, wikis, presentations, publications and social media.  Furthermore, AI summaries are now commonplace, which aggregate phrases and sentences from websites.  They suffer from further drawbacks: 1) it is no longer possible to judge the quality of information from the authenticity of its source when the source is obscured; 2) learning is considerably enhanced by narrative which may exist in original sources, but is generally lost in summaries generated by AI.

Our OpenFOAM Training Team

While “big tech” competes in a race to the bottom, CFD Direct upholds standards in CFD with OpenFOAM.  Our team has the experience to fill the knowledge gap between what users need and what Internet Search provides.

• Chris Greenshields, presenter for 850 days of OpenFOAM Training since 2008 and author of Notes on CFD: General Principles.
• Aidan Wimshurst, creator of the Fluid Mechanics 101 YouTube channel.
• Jenya Collings, manager of 1100 days of OpenFOAM Training since 2008.

OpenFOAM v14

CFD Direct make OpenFOAM more robust and easier to use in incremental steps that appear in version releases, so that over time we accumulate numerous tools that improve efficiency on routine tasks — see “Useful Tools in OpenFOAM” and “Useful Tools in OpenFOAM v11”.  Our training teaches these tools and is fully updated for the latest improvements in v14, including:

• field functions and the functionalFixedValue boundary condition for initialising non-uniform fields;
• units as a standard feature for input parameters, supported by the foamUnits utility and named dimensions;
• coded file input with the extended and improved set of directives, e.g. #calc, #codeDict, #stream, #print;
• particle simulations with new modular Lagrangian, see “Modular Lagrangian in OpenFOAM”.

This is in addition to improvements in other recent releases:

• modular solvers and the foamRun application;
• modern dynamic mesh zones and associated tools for controlling models and meshing on specific regions of mesh;
• the foamVTKSeries script for visualising series of VTK files and creating animations;
• a MULES limiter that guarantees boundedness, see “MULES in OpenFOAM in 2025”;
• code and software searching with foamFind and the foamToC utility;
• the snappyHexMeshConfig utility to preconfigure input files for meshing.