Is My Math Background Sufficient to Use OpenFOAM?

[deltapapazulu]

context:
I work for a guy who is interested in CFD. But he is a licensed engineer in the telecom industry (w/ an MS in Telecom) and has forgotten most of the Calculus he took in college.

My current working math knowledge is through Calc 3 (Multidimensional.), and about half of standard course in Differential Equations. Some Linear Algebra but haven't learned Eigenvalues yet.

My question is is that enough math to become reasonably proficient in the CFD software called OpenFOAM? Or do I have to go on to learn PDE, Numerical Analysis and such. I mean I am prepared to learn those things if necessary, just wondering if it is a must to use OpenFOAM for Computational Fluid Dynamics.

And I do have about a semester and a half familiarity with C++ and some other programming languages.

 

[Mark44]

My current working math knowledge is through Calc 3 (Multidimensional.), and about half of standard course in Differential Equations. Some Linear Algebra but haven't learned Eigenvalues yet.
My question is is that enough math to become reasonably proficient in the CFD software called OpenFOAM?

IMO, no it isn't. Take my advice with a grain of salt, as I don't know this software at all. My suspicion is that it uses finite element analysis (FEM) to solve partial differential equations in fluid dynamics.

Or do I have to go on to learn PDE, Numerical Analysis and such.

That would be my advice. It wouldn't hurt, though, to try out the sofware on some tutorials -- there are a number of them on the web. It's possible that a lot of the gory details of PDEs and analysis in meshes are hidden by the software.

 

[Anachronist]

Most of the gory details of meshes and such are hidden by the software, particularly OpenFOAM commercial GUI front-ends like SimFlow (free to download, install, and use for meshes less than 100,000 nodes) and SimScale (cloud-based, free for the first 12 cpu hours per year). You do have to figure out the mesh configuration and parameters for refinement around details of your geometry, but for the most part you just set it up and press "mesh" and the mesh gets generated. The GUI for setting up boundary conditions, turbulence, etc. is also fairly straightforward after getting over a learning curve.

I've spent a couple weeks with SimFlow+OpenFOAM now, and it's been frustrating, but much easier than if I used OpenFOAM by itself.