FOAM (Field Operation And Manipulation) 2.3: A multi-role open CFD code for general and advanced physics simulations written in C++.

Frustrated with pressing buttons on a black box? FOAM 2.3 delivers unprecedented levels of code access and control, putting the engineering back where it belongs: in your hands.

The new version of FOAM continues the tradition of innovation and cutting edge technologies coupled with complete transparency, pioneered by Nabla. The code offers the latest advances in solver and modelling technology along with many core capabilities now touted as features in contemporary products. FOAM provides something more than a CFD code: it provides leverage to tackle any continuum problem imaginable from financial derivative prediction to nano-manufacturing.

A faced based polyhedral cell description means that any and all cell types make viable meshes and FOAM can import meshes generated by many well known mesh generation systems, including those of Fluent/Gambit, Star-CD, CFX and I-DEAS. Having supported polyhedral cells since its inception, FOAM has several unique and effective methods for performing accurate simulations on such meshes.

An intuitive object based pre-processor, one of the first of its kind, requires only data necessary for the simulation to be entered, with nothing additional appearing in the interface. Dynamic run-time control is available for all numerical parameters from relaxation factors to discretisation schemes. FOAM sensibly writes case data into a set of files in an ordered directory structure rather than into a single file.

Modular physical models mean FOAM has extensive and rapidly growing libraries of transport, turbulence, breakup, combustion, chemical kinetics and other modelling capabilities. As with anything in FOAM, the libraries are easily extensible by the user or by Nabla consultants.

Parallel operation is available as standard, requiring no special version of the software or changes to case set up and offering great efficiency and robustness even on meshes of, say, 100 million cells.

The latest release of FOAM offers major advances in LES numerics allowing FOAM to perform accurate unsteady calculations on even the worst trimmed, locally refined and deformed meshes. With the addition of our integrated acoustic post-processor this forms the base of one of the most comprehensive aeroacoustic suites available.

The multiphase flow capabilites are further extended with: LES interface-tracking capable of simulating spray breakup; RAS turbulent interface-tracking; zero-loss, efficient, parallelised particle tracking.

Other features include: an extensive toolkit for analysing, merging, splitting and scaling meshes; a toolkit for manipulating surface descriptions in AC3D, GTS, Lightwave OBJ, OFF, STL, STL-binary and TRI formats; a new suite of powerful visualisation tools; new buoyancy and compressible flow solvers.

FOAM is supplied as a suite of libraries with source code and compilation tools, providing a programming environment with unlimited access to core functionality and breaking free of the restrictions of traditional, outdated user-coding. With FOAM code representing familiar mathematical expressions, any equations, models or data structures can all be manipulated with ease. The programming environment is accessible even to inexperienced users through strong support from Nabla and close partnerships between Nabla and its customers ensure new features are driven directly and intimately by the users. A wide network of academic users, for whom FOAM is freely available, further ensures that cutting edge technology is brought to the client faster than ever before.

In a marketplace where flash is rapidly becoming more important than function and `ease-of-use' a logic defying mantra, FOAM offers flexibility and accuracy. If it can't be done in FOAM, it can't be done.

For further information, go to http://www.nabla.co.uk