CFD Direct

The Architects of OpenFOAM

CFD Resources and Articles

CFD Direct Year 2: Development

CFD Direct Year 2: Development

During Year 2, CFD Direct made over 1000 code commits to the public development line of OpenFOAM, making us by far the largest contributor of code to OpenFOAM. We produced the major new version 4.0 release of OpenFOAM and the minor update version 4.1 release. We transformed OpenFOAM-dev into stable software of “always-releasable” quality and package it weekly for Ubuntu. Ubuntu packs can now be installed directly on Windows 10 and we also provide “containerized” versions, hosted on Docker Hub, accompanied by launch scripts for easy installation of OpenFOAM on Linux and macOS.

CFD Direct Year 2: Maintenance

OpenFOAM Unresolved Issues 2011-2017

In Year 2, CFD Direct handled almost 500 issues on the OpenFOAM issue tracking system. We upgraded the system and and analyzed metrics relating to timely resolution of issues which concluded that current unresolved issues relate to badly designed components of OpenFOAM that require significant code rewriting. To fund that repair work and ongoing maintenance, we ran a successful campaign to raise €100 k from companies that benefit from OpenFOAM. We carried out substantial maintenance to OpenFOAM websites, significant updates to documentation, and administration for the OpenFOAM Foundation.

CFD Direct Year 2: Training

CFD Direct Year 2: Training

In Year 2, CFD Direct delivered 55 days of OpenFOAM Training with its 3 × 2 day courses, Essential CFD, Applied CFD and Programming CFD. Training was delivered as: scheduled Classroom Training in London, Berlin, Munich, Houston, Chicago and Beijing; live Virtual Training; and, customer On-Site Training. We launched our Programming CFD course, containing modules in C++ programming applied to popular examples in OpenFOAM. We successfully ran live Virtual Training courses with participants from a wide geographical area. And we updated Training for OpenFOAM v4, that included our changes to make OpenFOAM easier to use.

CFD Direct Year 2: Cloud

CFD Direct Year 2: Cloud

In Year 2, CFD Direct updated its OpenFOAM cloud computing platform — CFD Direct From the Cloud (CFDDFC) — to OpenFOAM 4.1, running on Ubuntu 16.04. Feedback from users was very positive, including a 5-star rating on the CFDDFC Marketplace Product page at at Amazon Web Services (AWS). We became an Advanced Technology Partner of AWS, and produced a case study on the cost of CFD on AWS EC2 that concluded, in particular, that the cost of Spot instances was approximately 40% of the total cost of ownership of on-premises hardware. We made CFDDFC available on AWS X1 instance types, running simulations on 32 and 64 physical cores in a single instance.

OpenFOAM Maintenance

OpenFOAM Maintenance

OpenFOAM is free, open source software in computational fluid dynamics for real-world engineering and scientific applications. CFD Direct is committed to maintain OpenFOAM, demonstrated by the thousands of code commits to OpenFOAM-dev, with support from contributors. Maintenance concerns the evolution of software in response to changes in user expectation and environment. We have introduced an agile strategy suitable to the feedback process of software evolution and have identified key areas of OpenFOAM that requiring significant redesign, e.g. AMI and particles.

Cost of CFD in the Cloud

Cost of CFD in the Cloud

Cloud computing replaces large upfront expenses with low, variable payments that only apply to what you use. CFD simulations cover a range of sizes and complexity. Activity is generally interrupted by quiet periods when simulations are halted, e.g. when a simulation ends non-working hours, during analysis of results or preparation of a new simulation, etc. The fluctuating demand makes CFD well suited to a pay-per-use model. Users need to understand the costs involved to get the best value from cloud and be confident that they fall within budget. This article explains the costs, with an example of an external aerodynamics calculation with OpenFOAM using CFD Direct From the Cloud™ (CFDDFC) on Amazon Web Services (AWS).