OpenFOAM

OpenFOAM is leading software for computational fluid dynamics (CFD). It is licensed free and open source only under the GNU General Public Licence (GPL) by the OpenFOAM Foundation. Different versions of OpenFOAM supplied from different projects exist so choose your module carefully.

Usage

There are two OpenFOAM modules, choose one and load it with either:

module load OpenFOAM/v2206-foss-2022a
module load OpenFOAM/8-foss-2020b
module load OpenFOAM/v2012-foss-2020a

OpenFOAM can be used in an interactive or batch job. OpenFOAM modules can be activated using the module file and sourcing the OpenFOAM environment script e.g.

module load OpenFOAM/v2206-foss-2022a
source $FOAM_BASH

Hint

Users should investigate OpenFOAM documentation to determine which OpenFOAM executables are parallel compatible and which are serial only. Only the simpleFoam executable shown below is parallel compatible and is executed with srun in multiple core jobs.

Interactive Usage

The following is an example single core interactive session running the pitzDaily example model.

After connecting to Stanage (see section Connecting with SSH), you can start an interactive graphical session.

module load OpenFOAM/v2206-foss-2022a
source $FOAM_BASH
rm -r /users/$USER/tests/openfoam/run/
mkdir -p /users/$USER/tests/openfoam/run
cd /users/$USER/tests/openfoam/run
cp -r $FOAM_TUTORIALS/incompressible/simpleFoam/pitzDaily .
chmod 700 -R pitzDaily && cd pitzDaily
blockMesh
simpleFoam
paraFoam #To view the output.

Batch Usage

The following is an example batch job running the pitzDaily example model on 4 nodes with 1 task per node:

Important

You will need to supply a decomposeParDict in the system subdirectory of the case - check the installation script for an example using the EOF method to add it :

#!/bin/bash
#SBATCH --nodes=4
#SBATCH --ntasks-per-node=1
#SBATCH --mem=16000
#SBATCH --job-name=name_OpenFOAM_V2206_mpi_4
#SBATCH --output=output_OpenFOAM_V2206_mpi_4
#SBATCH --time=01:00:00
#SBATCH --mail-user=some.user@sheffield.ac.uk
#SBATCH --mail-type=ALL

mkdir -p /users/$USER/tests/openfoam/run
cd /users/$USER/tests/openfoam/run

module load OpenFOAM/v2206-foss-2022a
source $FOAM_BASH

cp -r $FOAM_TUTORIALS/incompressible/simpleFoam/pitzDaily .
chmod 700 -R pitzDaily && cd pitzDaily
cp /users/$USER/openfoam/my_custom_decomposeParDict_4 system/decomposeParDict  # You must supply you own copy or see the example below.

blockMesh
decomposePar

srun --export=ALL simpleFoam -parallel

Example decomposeParDict:

In the batch script example above my_custom_decomposeParDict_4 (for 4 cores) is located in /users/$USER/openfoam/ and contains the following:

FoamFile
{
    version         2.0;
    format          ascii;

    root            "";
    case            "";
    instance        "";
    local           "";

    class           dictionary;
    object          decomposeParDict;
}

// * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * //


numberOfSubdomains 4;

method          simple;

simpleCoeffs
{
    n               (1 4 1);
    delta           0.001;
}

hierarchicalCoeffs
{
    n               (1 1 1);
    delta           0.001;
    order           xyz;
}

metisCoeffs
{
    processorWeights
    (
        1
        1
        1
    );
}

manualCoeffs
{
    dataFile        "";
}

distributed     no;

roots
(
);


// ************************************************************************* //

Installation notes

Installation method

This section is primarily for administrators of the system. OpenFOAM has been installed using the default Easybuild config files. Build logs and test reports can be found in $EBDEVELOPENFOAM with a given module loaded.

Testing method

Testing has been conducted with the above examples.