CFD Direct

The Architects of OpenFOAM

CFD Book for OpenFOAM

CFD Direct is delighted to announce its publication of a book Notes on Computational Fluid Dynamics: General Principles. The book is written for people who use CFD in their work, research or study, providing essential knowledge to perform CFD analysis with confidence. It offers a modern perspective on CFD with the finite volume method, as implemented in OpenFOAM and other popular general-purpose CFD software.

About the Book

Fluid dynamics, turbulence (and RAS modelling) and boundary conditions are presented alongside the numerical methods and algorithms in a series of short, digestible topics, or notes, that contain complete, concise and relevant information. The book benefits from the experience of the authors: Henry Weller, core developer of OpenFOAM since writing its first lines in 1989; and, Chris Greenshields, who has delivered over 650 days of CFD training with OpenFOAM.

The book is available:

  • online in HTML format for free;
  • as a print-on-demand paperback book for $29.95, self-published through Amazon KDP.

By self-publishing through Amazon, the book can be delivered to the doorsteps of CFD users worldwide at an affordable price, which supports our mission to make CFD accessible and inclusive. The book can be purchased from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com.au, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, Amazon.es, Amazon.it, Amazon.nl and Amazon.jp.

Book Format

The book contains almost 150 notes, divided across 8 chapters. Each note covers exactly two pages of the print book, and one web page of the online version. Notes appears in their entirety on the left and right pages of the opened, printed book. The purpose of this format is to break down the material into small pieces that are easier for the reader to digest. Diagrams, graphs and images are used liberally to illustrate the concepts, with each note typically including 1-2 figures, alongside equations. Thematic figures are reused to reinforce certain concepts, annotated according to the subject matter. For more information about the book, see the Preface.

Writing the Book

The book’s authors discussed writing a CFD book at various times over the past 20 years but, due to their ongoing work and management of OpenFOAM, there never seemed to be a good opportunity to write.  However as CFD reaches an increasingly wider audience, the need for a book has evidently become more urgent in recent years. In 2019, demands for a book increased sharply, in particular from students struggling from a lack support and resources for their CFD studies and research.

So in November 2019 a decision was taken to write a book. The initial plan was for a book of 150 pages to be written in 1-1½ years but it later became apparent that much more material was required to cover turbulence and its modelling to a level that is useful. A final chapter was also added which demonstrates some sample problems to bring together some of the principles described in the book. In the end, the book extended to almost 300 pages and took approximately 8 man-months to write, fitting the work around existing schedules over a period of 2½ years.

We believe this is the best CFD book on the market today and recommend you buy a copy.

CFD Book for OpenFOAM
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