Connecting with OpenFOAM Users on PF: A Community for Linux-based CFD Software

[HuskyNamedNala]

This might not be in the right place, took a shot in the dark since it involves Linux, software and fluid mechanics. Quick question, is there an OpenFOAM community here on PF? OpenFOAM is an opensource CFD software (c++ based) for Linux. I am taking some online courses on the topic and would like to meet people who are familiar with using this program.

 

[CFDFEAGURU]

I use this program but only for simple geometries. I have not had the best of luck using SnappyHexMesh. It is a great program and really requires dedication.

 

[HuskyNamedNala]

Ahh, I am taking the course because there are some ideas of my own I want to explore, and I think it will look really good on grad school/job applications to have Linux and openfoam experience.

I enrolled in this course advertised on CFD-online
http://www.cfd-online.com/Forums/op...enfoam-course-provided-technical-courses.html

Have you taken it before? There is a Part II to the course, which involves more programming. At $500 for a full class you can't beat it (compared with upwards of 3000 for a class offered at local schools).

 

[CFDFEAGURU]

I have taken the OpenFOAM training class and I am taking the Advanced training class this spring. Thanks for the link to. I did not know about that class.

 

[HuskyNamedNala]

The classes offered on the main openfoam website? I wanted to take them but they were about $1600 a piece. My company would have paid for it, but not up front :(

I'll give you a warning, the lectures included with that class are pretty terrible in English, but they give a really good set of PDFs for each chapter.

 

[CFDFEAGURU]

Yes, the classes offered by OpenFOAM. The first course was great and I learned a lot. I took that course in San Francisco back in 2013. This time I am heading to Chicago for the Advanced Course. The materials provided were pretty good. I still refer to them all the time.

 

[HuskyNamedNala]

nice, do you work in the CFD industry or are you a student?

 

[CFDFEAGURU]

I am an FEA (ANSYS) user for many years now. I started getting into CFD about 7 years ago. A friend of mine has his own CFD consultancy company and he uses FLUENT with 128 machines paralleled together and I have hired him as a subcontractor to run solutions on large high temperature process equipment and for some other large run time solutions for flue gas flows in a Waste Heat Boiler. He turned me on to OpenFOAM back in its early releases which were not really easy to use compared to the newest version. I have been using it for about 3 years now but I only have a small 12 gig and 6 gig quadcore setups so I only take on small problems such as, looking for recirculation in a poorly designed duct transition, and a few conjugate heat transfer applications.

 

[HuskyNamedNala]

Nice, I wanted to run a few cases with two element airfoils a high angles of attack, as well as estimate the boundary layer thickness of a wind tunnel I designed. I'm running Ubuntu on an Asus with 8 gigs of Ram and an addition 2 gigs of video ram (not sure what it is called, as I had never seen this type of stat before). Evnetually Id like to graduate to conducting simulations on propellers, but my gut feeling is that SPH methods might be more useful for that work.