OpenFOAM v2312: First Contact

Hey there 👋

It’s Robin from CFD Engine & I’m back in your inbox with a quick look at OpenFOAM v2312.

New year, new release from OpenCFD & there are plenty of interesting bits & bobs to check out.

Nothing huge, nothing that’s going to break your scripts or models – just another solid update 🙌

But, before I jump into the bits that caught my eye…

Thank You

Thank you to everyone involved with this release 🤝

And not just those at OpenCFD, several of my highlights are the result of collaboration with others in the community (companies, universities & individuals).

So, huge thanks to all of the contributors & kudos for the engagement 🙏

On to the goodies…

Adjoint (again)

I include adjoint in most OpenCFD release reviews & I still haven’t tried it 🤦‍♂️

This time there have been updates to both of my ideal use cases – shape optimisation (changing the shape of existing stuff) & topology optimisation (creating new stuff).

Is this the release where I finally take adjoint for a spin?

I think so – the topology optimisation examples might have pushed me over the edge 🤔

Reduced-Order Modelling

Dynamic mode decomposition is another magic technique (like adjoint) & like adjoint, I’ve not given it the time it deserves.

This one can be used to extract modes (& their dynamics) from unsteady data to create a lightweight surrogate.

We’ve had the ability to construct these reduced-order models for a while. Now we can construct fields from them & predict the future 🔮

I wonder if it works with lottery numbers 🤔

snappyHexMesh

I’m always happy to see snappyHexMesh developments.

In this update we get the ability to specify multiple inside points for a cellZone, more detail in the logs on when/why meshes are being rebalanced and the option to write any leak-closure faces that snappy might have generated (you could take them into CAD & fix your leaks for good).

There’s also what I think is a new demo (as opposed to new functionality) which shows how to apply layers in multiple passes, increasing the number of layers that snappy can add 🙌

New repos

We’ve got 2 new repositories to explore…

One for verification & validation cases, separate from the main code repo. There are currently 3 cases in there & they look great, with clear documentation & templates for submitting your own.

We’ve also got a new turbulence committee submodule.

Submodules are tricky – so, let’s pretend that they’re plugins. The code in the submodule lives outside the main OpenFOAM codebase, but it’s designed to work seamlessly within it.

The new turbulence submodule has two tiers…

Tier Zero is a list of turbulence-related OpenFOAM projects that researchers & developers can use to promote their work.

Tier One projects are the plugins, new turbulence functionality for OpenFOAM.

The first Tier One project brings us wall-modelled LES for cheaper large-eddy simulations – thanks Timofey 🙏

JSON

There were two bits in this release (a caseInfo function object & a tweak to checkMesh) that can write their output as JSON (a structured text format with lots of indentation & curly brackets).

I hope this is a trend – JSON opens up some neat automation opportunities & I’m always here for more of that.

What did you spot?

These are just my highlights, it’s well worth taking 5mins to check the full release notes yourself.

Let me know your favourite developments? Mine were the JSON bits 🤓

Will you be jumping on this release, or taking a pass?

Drop me a note, it’s always good to hear your thoughts 📭

Until next week, stay safe,