CFD Direct

The Architects of OpenFOAM

OpenFOAM

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.

Computational Fluid Dynamics

computational fluid dynamics mesh

Fluid dynamics is concerned with the motion of fluids (liquids and gases) and the forces on them. “Computational” refers to computation of the flow and forces using numerical analysis. We define “computational fluid dynamics” as “the prediction of fluid motion and forces by computation using numerical analysis, generally extended to include heat, thermodynamics, chemistry and solids”. This definition covers a broad range of calculations for numerous scientific and engineering applications, in particular involving heat.

Energy Equation in OpenFOAM

Energy Equation in OpenFOAM

This article provides information on the equation describing conservation of energy relevant to fluid dynamics and computational fluid dynamics (CFD). It first assembles an equation for combined mechanical and thermal energy, i.e. total energy, in terms of material derivatives. It then presents an equation for thermal, or internal, energy. The total energy equation is then provided in terms of local (partial) derivatives, both in terms of internal energy and enthalpy. The implementation of the energy equation in solvers in OpenFOAM is then described.

OpenFOAM v4 Training 2017

OpenFOAM v4 Training 2017

In 2017, CFD Direct are running sessions of their OpenFOAM Training courses — Essential CFD, Applied CFD and Programming CFD — fully updated with the latest features of the new version 4 release of OpenFOAM: 24-27 April 2017, Berlin Germany; 16-18 May, Virtual Asia-Pacific; 20-21 June, 26-27 June, Virtual Americas; 4-5 July, London UK; 12-13 Sept, Virtual Americas; 25-28 Sept, London UK; 16-19 October, Chicago USA. OpenFOAM v4 contains new functionality we introduced in OpenFOAM v4 to improve usability so our course participants spend less time struggling with quirks of the software, leaving more time to build and practice their CFD skills.

CFD Direct Year 1: 2015-2016

CFD Direct Year 1

On 25th March 2015, CFD Direct was launched by Henry Weller (creator of OpenFOAM), Chris Greenshields, and Jenya Collings. At the end of our first year, we summarise our principal activities as the primary contributor to OpenFOAM, producing 3 releases of OpenFOAM, maintaining the OpenFOAM code base, managing the OpenFOAM Foundation, creating a free documentation resource and engaging with the community. We launched 3 training courses — Essential, Applied and Programming CFD — which we deliver as scheduled classroom courses, live virtual training and on-site. We launched CFD Direct From the Cloud (CFDDFC), a complete CFD cloud computing platform using Amazon Web Services EC2.

CFD Direct Year 1: OpenFOAM

CFD Direct OpenFOAM Programming Course

During our first year, we made over 900 code commits to the to the public development line of OpenFOAM, making us by far the largest contributor of code to OpenFOAM. In 2015, we produced one major, one minor and one patch release of OpenFOAM. We carried out maintenance on OpenFOAM, reducing the number of outstanding issues by approximately 35%, involving over 500 commits to the bug fix line of OpenFOAM 3.0. We managed the OpenFOAM Foundation, established a free OpenFOAM documentation resource, and our posts on social media updated users about developments to OpenFOAM , which encouraged a strong community to support and contribute to OpenFOAM as free software.