CFD Direct

The Architects of OpenFOAM

OpenFOAM

OpenFOAM v5 Training

OpenFOAM v5 Training

In Autumn 2017, CFD Direct are running their OpenFOAM Training courses — Essential CFD, Applied CFD and Programming CFD — fully updated with the latest features of the new version 5 release of OpenFOAM. Essential and Applied CFD courses are available: 25-28 Sep, London UK, and 16-19 Oct, Chicago USA with limited places via the Internet; 6-9 November, Munich Germany. Programming CFD is available 12-13 Sep and 3-4 Oct as Virtual Training. We use new features in OpenFOAM v5 to give our participants the confidence to carry out CFD analysis, repeatedly, to a defined standard in a timely manner.

Water Waves in OpenFOAM

Water waves in OpenFOAM

In May 2017, we implemented water wave modelling into the public, development line of OpenFOAM (OpenFOAM-dev), to simulate flow conditions experienced in marine and offshore engineering, e.g. on a ship in open water. The initial implementation includes the first order Airy wave and the second order Stokes wave (Stokes II), a second-order accurate utility to apply waves for case initialisation to the entire domain. A verticalDamping source (fvOption) provides wave damping towards outlet regions and an interfaceHeight function object processes interface elevation at specified locations.

CFD Direct Year 2: 2016-2017

CFD Direct Year 2: 2016-2017

At the end of Year 2 of CFD Direct, we summarise our principal activities as the primary contributor to OpenFOAM. We developed new functionality, producing OpenFOAM v4.0 and v4.1, maintaining the OpenFOAM code base, documentation, websites and other infrastructure — where we contributed 1300 man-hours of work in-kind. We delivered 55 days of OpenFOAM Training — Essential, Applied and Programming CFD — as scheduled classroom courses, live virtual training and on-site. We released new versions of our cloud CFD platform, CFD Direct From the Cloud (CFDDFC), and became and Advanced Technology Partner of Amazon Web Services.

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.