Structure of OpenFOAM
OpenFOAM is constituted by a large base library, which offers the core capabilities of the code:
- Tensor and field operations
- Discretization of partial differential equations using a human-readable syntax
- Solution of linear systems
- Solution of ordinary differential equations
- Automatic parallelization of high-level operations
- Dynamic mesh
- General physical models
- Rheological models
- Thermodynamic models and database
- Turbulence models
- Chemical reaction and kinetics models
- Lagrangian particle tracking methods
- Radiative heat transfer models
- Multi-reference frame and single-reference frame methodologies
The capabilities provided by the library are then used to develop applications. Applications are written using the high-level syntax introduced by OpenFOAM, which aims at reproducing the conventional mathematical notation. Two categories of applications exist:
- Solvers: they perform the actual calculation to solve a specific continuum mechanics problem
- Utilities: they are used to prepare the mesh, set-up the simulation case, process the results, and to perform operations other than solving the problem under examination
Each application provides specific capabilities: for example the application called blockMesh is used to generate meshes from an input file provided by the user, while another application called icoFoam solves the Navier-Stokes equations for an incompressible laminar flow.
Finally, a set of third-party packages are used to provide parallel functionality (i.e.OpenMPI) and graphical post-processing (ParaView).
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