The Architects of OpenFOAM
CFD Direct are running 2 pilot sessions of their new OpenFOAM Training courses on: 1-4 June 2015, Berlin, Germany; 15-18 June 2015, Houston, TX USA. The 2×2 day courses, Essential CFD and Advanced CFD, have been developed to enable people to deliver successful CFD solutions with OpenFOAM. The new courses are a result of 6 months development, built on our experience as the Architects of OpenFOAM and of training 2500 people with OpenFOAM.
An earlier article described the OpenFOAM training through which Jenya Collings and I provided almost 500 days of instructor-led, classes to 2,500 particpants. That training mainly described the workings of the OpenFOAM for the early adopters of the software, but we need training whose focus is to enable people to deliver successful CFD solutions. CFD Direct have developed this training over several months, with a modular format that addresses all components of CFD and where the participant learns through experience on a wide range of real-world CFD examples. The training is built on developments to OpenFOAM that make it easier to use, such as template cases, packaged tools, reorganised input and re-coded features.
In 2008, the Directors of CFD Direct began the first significant OpenFOAM Training courses. The training was written for early adopters of OpenFOAM at a time when OpenFOAM was far less functional than today. The courses largely emphasised how OpenFOAM worked and a lot of time was devoted to code customisation. We pioneered a convenient method of providing participants with a running version of OpenFOAM using a persistent live installation that booted Linux from an 8GB USB pendrive. The wider user community benefited from our example cases, e.g. the motorbike case, and code changes made for the courses becoming part of OpenFOAM and our adoption of Ubuntu leading to the release of OpenFOAM packaged for Ubuntu.