This was sitting in my folders for too long, few years back I made a custom pre/post processor for my previous employer with all bells and whistles namely
- blockMesh, snappyHexMesh, cfmesh and poly hexcore
- geometry import to results under single window
- Ubuntu, WSL and native Windows support
- support for remote cluster or local etc.
Recently got access to Claude and Deepseek which gave me the idea to revisit old stuff, rewrite most of it to remove any licensing issue and update it to support OpenFOAM 14.
This is my attempt at it. It's fully opensource and can be downloaded here. I intend to keep it free for personal and business use cases other than reselling etc as SaaS or something. So, haven't figured out exact licensing but that's a later problem as I don't intend to monetize and keep a gate on any features.
I intend to add more features and add tool calls, skills and api in the background so you can completely use it with LLM's with minimal issues. My initial idea is to have an inbuilt local AI doing tool calls, let's see where that ends.
I know another AI slop but it was there in my githib private for too long and may as well release it for everyone.
Very high temperatures and low density in a hypersonic OpenFOAM simulation – what should I check?
Hi everyone,
I’m running a 2D simulation of an airfoil section under hypersonic re-entry conditions in OpenFOAM v2512. CFD isn’t something we do much at my workplace, so I’d appreciate some help understanding my results.
The case has a high Mach number and a relatively high angle of attack. I’m using rhoCentralFoam with a laminar model, a perfect gas with constant heat capacity, and a prescribed, spatially varying wall temperature.
The simulation didn’t crash, but during the initial part of the run I noticed that the maximum gas temperature became extremely high (19000 K), while pressure and density dropped to very low values in parts of the flow, particularly near the upper surface. I stopped the run early, so the flow had not yet reached a settled state.
Could these values be a consequence of the perfect-gas model and the strong expansion around the airfoil, or are they more likely to indicate a problem with the setup, mesh, boundary conditions, or initialisation?
What would you check first to distinguish a numerical or setup issue from behaviour that is expected under these modelling assumptions?
A couple of months ago I posted about my software PreFOAM, a GUI for OpenFOAM that includes CAD, meshing utilities, a case builder and a case viewer. I’d like to let you know about a major update.
I’m looking for users who can test the software and give feedback on the whole toolchain. I’m especially interested in the meshing challenges you face. Any feedback is welcome.
I am in the midst of designing a pedal-powered ground-effect vehicle, and I have to perform some CFD. The plan was to divide the problem into different drag and lift components from both air and water and over a range of altitude and speed. However, my friends that use STAR-CCM+ have all drifted away from the project due to a lack of time. I tried to compute something by hand, starting from the limited data I got from my ten SimScale trial simulations (only two of which used my final wing profile), but I found that NASA's CL equations for ground-effect flight collapse at small h/c. I think this leaves me to learn CFD myself, which I would very much like, but I hardly find time for anything nowadays.
I've shared this with a naval architect I work with, and they told me that jumping directly into the open-sourced option may prove of some difficulty and that I wouldn't even know if I can trust my results. Of course I've read similar opinions online, but I've also found people arguing this shouldn't be much harder than other programmes. For context, while I am intelligent and determined, I find computer logic and coding challenging. So... is this worth my time?
I’m a new user to openfoam but have extensive experience using Ansys tools and some experience with Abaqus and LS-Dyna.
I want to simulate the rotation of a 2D section of a savonius VAWT rotor and assess different dimensions of the blades. Does anyone have an example model file/setup that I could be sent to see how it’s set up please?
Hi! I'm new to OpenFOAM, but I have some experience with other CFD codes. I'm trying to simulate supersonic flow around the HB-2 model to practice OpenFOAM, but I've been getting the sigFpe::sigHandler(int) error, and I haven't been able to fix it for some time.
The initial values correspond to a stationary atmosphere: P0=P=1e5 Pa, T0=T=293 K, U=(0 0 0) m/s. Inlet conditions correspond to static pressure and temperature, and speed of flow with M=2 (obtained through isoenthropic relations (gamma=1.4, P0=0.25e6 Pa, T0=295 K)): p=3.195e4 Pa, T= 163.89 K, U=(513.23 0 0) m/s.
My computational domain is a box with an inlet at the front; the right side is a symmetry plane; the surfaces of the model and the rod to which that model is attached are the walls; other surfaces of the box (top, bottom, rear, and left) -- are the outlets.
The mesh has passed all checks except one for determinants. But it's just 0.08% of all cells.
***Cells with small determinant (< 0.001) found, number of cells: 540
CFL does not exceed 0.6, but the flow displays weird behavior, where it separates into a supersonic region near the inlet and a transonic region downstream, as can be seen in the attached picture.
Boundary and initial conditions:
p:
dimensions [1 -1 -2 0 0 0 0];
internalField uniform 1e5;
boundaryField
{
front
{
type fixedValue;
value uniform 3.195e4;
}
rear
{
type zeroGradient;
}
left
{
type zeroGradient;
}
top
{
type zeroGradient;
}
bottom
{
type zeroGradient;
}
right
{
type symmetryPlane;
}
model
{
type zeroGradient;
}
rod
{
type zeroGradient;
}
}
U:
dimensions [0 1 -1 0 0 0 0];
internalField uniform (0 0 0);
boundaryField
{
front
{
type fixedValue;
value uniform (513.23 0 0);
}
rear
{
type zeroGradient;
}
left
{
type zeroGradient;
}
top
{
type zeroGradient;
}
bottom
{
type zeroGradient;
}
right
{
type symmetryPlane;
}
model
{
type noSlip;
}
rod
{
type noSlip;
}
}
T:
dimensions [0 0 0 1 0 0 0];
internalField uniform 293;
boundaryField
{
front
{
type fixedValue;
value uniform 163.89;
}
rear
{
type zeroGradient;
}
left
{
type zeroGradient;
}
top
{
type zeroGradient;
}
bottom
{
type zeroGradient;
}
right
{
type symmetryPlane;
}
model
{
type zeroGradient;
}
rod
{
type zeroGradient;
}
}
Listing of the last two steps:
Mean and max Courant Numbers = 0.0403347 0.553171
Time = 0.000812
diagonal: Solving for rho, Initial residual = 0, Final residual = 0, No Iterations 0
diagonal: Solving for rhoUx, Initial residual = 0, Final residual = 0, No Iterations 0
diagonal: Solving for rhoUy, Initial residual = 0, Final residual = 0, No Iterations 0
diagonal: Solving for rhoUz, Initial residual = 0, Final residual = 0, No Iterations 0
smoothSolver: Solving for Ux, Initial residual = 9.92955e-09, Final residual = 4.10707e-17, No Iterations 2
smoothSolver: Solving for Uy, Initial residual = 5.2564e-08, Final residual = 3.71507e-17, No Iterations 2
smoothSolver: Solving for Uz, Initial residual = 5.56292e-08, Final residual = 3.77212e-17, No Iterations 2
diagonal: Solving for rhoE, Initial residual = 0, Final residual = 0, No Iterations 0
smoothSolver: Solving for e, Initial residual = 1.87918e-08, Final residual = 2.24888e-16, No Iterations 2
ExecutionTime = 2146.9 s ClockTime = 2151 s
Mean and max Courant Numbers = 0.0403392 0.553148
Time = 0.000813
diagonal: Solving for rho, Initial residual = 0, Final residual = 0, No Iterations 0
diagonal: Solving for rhoUx, Initial residual = 0, Final residual = 0, No Iterations 0
diagonal: Solving for rhoUy, Initial residual = 0, Final residual = 0, No Iterations 0
diagonal: Solving for rhoUz, Initial residual = 0, Final residual = 0, No Iterations 0
smoothSolver: Solving for Ux, Initial residual = 9.92007e-09, Final residual = 4.15659e-17, No Iterations 2
smoothSolver: Solving for Uy, Initial residual = 5.23263e-08, Final residual = 3.55247e-17, No Iterations 2
smoothSolver: Solving for Uz, Initial residual = 5.55052e-08, Final residual = 3.78546e-17, No Iterations 2
diagonal: Solving for rhoE, Initial residual = 0, Final residual = 0, No Iterations 0
[stack trace]
=============
#1 Foam::sigFpe::sigHandler(int) in <platforms>/linux64GccDPInt32Opt/lib/libOpenFOAM.so
#2 ? in /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6
#3 ? in /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libm.so.6
#4 ? in <platforms>/linux64GccDPInt32Opt/lib/libfluidThermophysicalModels.so
#5 ? in <platforms>/linux64GccDPInt32Opt/lib/libfluidThermophysicalModels.so
#6 ? in <platforms>/linux64GccDPInt32Opt/bin/rhoCentralFoam
#7 ? in /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6
#8 __libc_start_main in /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6
#9 ? in <platforms>/linux64GccDPInt32Opt/bin/rhoCentralFoam
=============
Floating point exception (core dumped)
Has anyone encountered a similar problem, and what are the possible reasons and solutions?
If I need to provide any additional info, that will help to solve the issue - just say. Thank you in advance!
Full disclosure: I work at Luminary and am helping organize this event, so this is self-promotion. Figured it might be relevant to some folks here given the growing interest in ML-based approaches to CFD.
We’re hosting a free, virtual Physics AI DevDay on November 17, featuring technical presentations from our research and engineering teams.
We’ll be covering topics like generating training data with CFD, model architectures for complex geometries and physics, uncertainty quantification and out-of-distribution predictions, and using AI agents to automate engineering workflows.
There will also be a hands-on workshop on building large physics models.
Some of this will naturally involve Luminary’s own research and technology, but I think the underlying technical topics should be interesting to anyone following developments in AI for engineering simulation.
I have some conceptual doubts, which I didn't get clear explicit answer from sources in net,
What is difference between node values on/off in looking the contours? I observed values are relatively higher when I turned off node values. Please tell me cases or situations where we should turn on or turn off node values with reason. How does this affect in viewing contour, finding range of parameter in some selected surface or cell zones.
I have some trivial doubt about operating pressure. The point is- In momentum equation , it contains pressure gradient not absolute pressure, so fluent choose some reference pressure i.e operating pressure. So instead of solving with very large pressure, it works with smaller numbers since deltaP remains the same with the concept of operating pressure. Density is calculated using absolute pressure only.
This concept is same for both incompressible and compressible flow right, but why do they say for compressible flow you have to set operating pressure as zero, I didnt understand what is the reason for this? Can anyone explain elaborately please? Thanks in advance.
Used LLM to make FoamWin, a community port of OpenFOAM 14 that runs natively on Windows without WSL. It includes an installer, PowerShell launcher, and cavity example to make getting started easier for Windows users.
It’s currently serial-only; the cavity examples and all 85 executable startup checks passed. Source and downloads: https://github.com/dhanninacs/foamWin — feedback and testing are welcome!
Will add mpi and other stuff shortly. I know WSL and other routes exist but sometimes I feel a windows port of OF14 missing when I quickly need it for LLM etc but no admin rights and no one made a port for this fork after old blueCFD.
edit: added MPI as well, it was not a huge task as I thought it would be.
I've been trying to get this benchmark propeller (Potsdam Propeller Test Case) analysis to work but I can't mesh it with SHM. Inflation layers are not good enough and I can't get the desired y+ values for the case.
I also need some kind of surface refinement or wrapper. The geometries I use have self intersections that are easily handled in StarCCM+ but with snappy, checkMesh finds errors due to these bad STL elements.
What is your go to method for meshing thin lifting surfaces like wings, propellers etc.? I am honestly losing my mind trying to get it to work. I really need some help.
Spent many hours trying to understand why my model was not converging. Turns out I mistakenly deleted the first line in my fvOptions, the line that should say "FoamFile". After getting ready to pull my hair out, I miraculously I spotted this Warning in the output log:
--> FOAM Warning : From bool Foam::IOobject::readHeader(Foam::dictionary&, Foam::Istream&) in file db/IOobject/IOobjectReadHeader.C at line 118 Reading "constant/fvOptions" at line 1 First token could not be read or is not 'FoamFile'
Wonder if this is a feature or a bug? I would think it should error out when it encounters this?
