Links - Software
Software related to CFD. This section is a mix of real links and meta links.
Only particularly interesting things are linked directly. If you want a more
comprehensive overview you should follow the meta links.
To suggest a link to be included in this section please use
the online
link suggestion form. You are of
course also welcome to contact us directly via email at
webmaster@cfd-online.com.
Contents:
Fluid Dynamics
- CFD-Wiki Codes Page
![[GOOD]](Icons/smiley.gif)
- A list of free and commercial codes. Fairly complete, but not always correct and up to date. You can correct any misstakes you find yourself!
- CFD Codes List
- A summary of commercial and free CFD software available on the net. Contains
short descriptions and often contacts or links where you can find further
information. This list was created by Tomasz Plewa, but he stopped maintaining
it in 1997. It is very outdated by now.
- MGNet Code Repository
- Multigrid related software packages.
- Downloadable Software, Aerodynamics and Design
- A collection of programs for analysis and design of wings etc. By Dr. W.
Mason, Viriginia Tech. Nice!
simulation.
- Public Domain Aeronautical Software
- Sells a CD with a collection of public domain aeronautical programs.
Selected Codes
Below follows a list of free CFD codes.
- OpenFOAM
- OpenFOAM is a general purpose open-source CFD code. OpenFOAM is written
in C++ and uses an object oriented approach which makes it easy to extend.
The package includes modules for a wide range of applications. FOAM was written
by Henry Weller and others at Imperial College. For a few years FOAM was
sold as a commercial code by their company Nabla. However, in 2004 they decided
to release the code under GPL and rename it to OpenFOAM. OpenFOAM was distributed
by their OpenCFD company for a number of years, but in 2011 SGI bought OpenCFD. Henry
and his OpenCFD team now works for SGI and the
OpenFOAM code is still distributed freely under a GPL license. There is
also a separate OpenFOAM Extend version,
created by Hrvoje Jasak and a group of volunteers. This version is not recognized by OpenCFD.
OpenFOAM is a very capable code which you definitely should check out if you
are looking for a state-of-the-art CFD code with source-code access.
- SU2
- The Stanford University Unstructured (SU2) suite is an
open-source collection of software tools written in C++ for solving
PDE's and performing optimization problems. This initiative
was launched in January 2012. We haven't tried it yet, but it looks
interesting and we'll give them a smiley from start.
If you try this suite please
let us know if you think they deserve the smiley.
- Free CFD
- Free CFD is an open source CFD code written in C++. It has an implicit density based
solver for unstructured grids in 3D. The project is fairly new (Feb 2009) and still lacks
some important functionality, like turbulence modeling. It looks promising, but
developments in the last year (2011) have not been that quick.
If you think that OpenFOAM is too
complex and too large, Free CFD can be an interesting alternative, especially of you want
a density based solver suitable for high-speed flows.
- FEniCS
- An open-source package for computational mathematical modeling. Has some
functionality to solve Navier-Stokes. Looks very nice. FEniCS is being developed
very quickly and can become very interesting for CFD people. FEniCS and its
sister projects are used extensively in education.
- Palabos
- An open source software library for lattice Boltzmann CFD simulations.
Developed and distributed by the FlowKit company.
- Gerris Flow Solver
- An open-source CFD code for incompressible flow. Focused on marine and
ocean flow applications. Looks nice and well documented.
- Overture
- A large object-oriented C++ framework for solving PDE's. Uses overlapping
structured grids. This is a large research code for people who know how to
install and compile things themselves.
- Phoenics V 1.4 as Shareware
- CHAM distributes old versions of Phoenics as shareware.
- Clawpack
- A free software package for conservation laws by Randall J. LeVeque.
- FEATFLOW
- FEAT is a general purpose software system for solving PDEs with the finite
element method. The system includes a lot of tools and an incompressible
fluid-flow package called FEATFLOW. The software is available freely with
source (F77) and the site has a lot of further information available online.
The FEAT group are from the University of Heidelberg.
- ISAAC
- A compressible Euler/Navier-Stokes code written in F77. Developed mainly
to test turbulence models. Worth a look if you want a code with advanced
turbulence modeling (it has several two equation models, explicit ARSM models
and full differential RSM models implemented).
- Channelflow
- A spectral Navier-Stokes simulator in C++. Comes with full source and documentation.
- NaSt3DGP
- A free CFD code with source code included. Uses finite volume discretization
on a cartesian non-uniform staggered mesh, VONOS/SMART higher order upwind
schemes and Adams-Bashforth time discretization. The code is parallelized
with MPI and can handle complex geometries by a simple cell decomposition/enumeration
technique.
- MOUSE
- MOUSE is an open-source object-oriented framework for finite volume computations
on unstructured grids. It can be used as a development library, or as a finished
application. Mouse currently supports 2D laminar flows, but further extensions
to 3D are planned. No news since 2002 (2011), so the project looks a bit stalled.
- VH-1 (Virginia
Hydrodynamics - 1)
- A multidimensional ideal compressible hydrodynamics code written in Fortran.
Based on the Lagrangian remap version of the Piecewise Parabolic Method (PPM).
- QUICK 'n SIMPLE
- A free 2D, laminar, incompressible CFD code based on the SIMPLE algorithm
with QUICK interpolation. Only available in compiled format for Macintosh
platforms.
- OpenFlower
- An open-source CFD code written in C++. Mainly focused on turbulent, unsteady
and incompressible flow. Beta version released in 2005 but after that not
much has happened (2011).
Mesh Generation
- Mesh Generation Software
- A large list of public domain and commercial mesh generators. Maintained
by Robert Schneiders as a part of the excellent Mesh Generation & Grid Generation on the Web site.
- Meshing Software Survey
- A large survey of mesh generation software by Steve Owen. Includes both
commercial and public-domain software. Very nice!
- ISGG
Software/Public Domain
- A list of public-domain mesh generators. Provided by the International Society of Grid Generation.
- CEWES MSRC Grid Generation Software Catalog
- A nice directory of grid generation software. Includes several common CFD
grid-generators. They used to have reviews of many packages available online,
but they seem to have removed the reviews now.
- Grid Generation Enhancement at ERDC MSRC
- A nice evaluation of many commercial grid generators, including ratings
of many important features (time to learn, grid quality, ...). The evaluation
was performed in 1999. Many comments are still valid though. Well worth a
visit!
Selected Codes
Below follows a list of free mesh generators.
Visualization
This area is so big that all information can't be included here. For a more complete
list, look at the
SAL:
Scientific Data Processing & Visualization ,
Scientific
Visualization Sites ,
Software
for Graphics and Data Analysis,
Yahoo - Visualization or read the newsgroup
comp.graphics.visualization. I have tried to extract the few visualization
packages that might be of special interest for CFD researchers. If you have any
other suggestions on what to include here, please let me know
- ParaView
- A state-of-the-art post-processor designed to be able to handle very large
datasets. Distributed as open-source software. Can read both Ensight and
Plot3D formats. Highly recommended!
- OpenDX
- A full-featured open-source scientific visualization package based on IBM's
Visualization Data Explorer. OpenDX is a very capable package and it runs
on most UNIX platforms. Highly recommended!
- MayaVi Data Visualizer
- A very nice & free scientific data visualizer. MayaVi is based on VTK
and runs on Linux, most Unix'es, and Windows. Source code available.
- GMV - The General Mesh Viewer
- A free 3D visualization tool. Runs on Linux, most Unix'es and windows.
Source code not available.
- Flow Analysis Software
Toolkit (FAST)
- A software environment for analyzing data from numerical simulations. Developed
by NAS. FAST is free and you can buy the source code. Unfortunately it only
runs on SGI workstations.
- Visualization Codes at MIT
- pV3, Visual3 and Visual2 - all developed for CFD. Some versions are free!
- ChomboVis
- A free scientific data visualizer for 2D & 3D AMR data sets. Based
on VTK and runs on Linux mainly, although you might get it to run on other
Unix'es. Source code available.
- VU
- A generic scientific visualization package from CERCA. VU is available
for free to Universities. Companies have to pay an annual fee. VU runs on
most Unix platforms. The site gives further information and has a tutorial
and a manual available online.
- CAF2D / FEMFlow and
CAF3D / PostFlow
- Free flow-visualization codes from CAF
Lab.
- VIGIE
- VIGIE is a visualization packaged developed at INRIA. It supports X11.
You can download the entire package for free. It also includes source code.
- DAVID, Data Visualization and Diagnostics
- A free visualization package developed at the Laboratory for Visiometrics
and Modeling, Rutgers University. DAVID is written in C and should run on
must UNIX boxes. It uses X Window and also supports PostScript output.
- Se.La.Vi.
- SciEntific LAb for VIsualization - a scientific data visualization package
with an animation engine. Works on MS-Windows platforms. Free for academic
and non-profit use.
- HIGHEND - Interactive Graphics using Hierarchical Experimental and Numerical
Data
- A free data visualizer developed by DLR.
- NCSA UNIX Products
- NCSA provides several good free visualization packages - look here for
more information.
- Hierarchical Data Format (HDF)
- Information about the HDF data format used with NCSA software.
Organizations
- ICASE Visualization
and Graphics Research
- Complex three-dimensional visualization problems. The emphasis is on applications
in computational and experimental fluid dynamics and related areas.
Companies
- Advanced Visual Systems Inc.
- Develops and sells AVS - a very big scientific visualization system.
- Computational Engineering International, Inc.
- Develops and sells EnSight - a software package for the visualization of
simulation results.
- Intelligent Light
- Develops and sells Fieldview - a CFD postprocessor.
- NAG, The Numercial Algorithms Group, Ltd.
- Develops and sells IRIS Explorer, a visualization system.
- Tecplot, Inc.
- The makers of Tecplot, a technical plotting and data visualization package.
- VSG, Visualization Sciences Group
- Develops and sells Avizo Wind - a 3D visualization software for simulation data.
Commercial CFD Packages
A good place to go if you are looking for a commercial CFD code is to check the
list of
CFD Online's sponsors. If you can't
find the company you are looking for there you can check the
Homepage
Database, Companies Section. If you have any questions about CFD codes you
are also welcome to post them on the
CFD Online Discussion
Forum. This forum is monitored by most CFD code vendors. The links below
are a few collections of CFD codes that can be found on the net. These are not
complete and often not that up-to-date though.
- CFD Codes List, Commercial Products
- Links to many commercial CFD products. The list is getting a bit old though,
and the structure isn't optimal.
- COSMIC - NASA's Software Technology Transfer Center
- Software information exchange between NASA and the public. Has an online
catalog with more than 850 program abstracts. The codes usually cost money
to get.
- IBM Catalog of Software from Third Parties
- Includes a few titles related to fluids, CFD and flow analysis.
- SGI 3rd Party Applications Directory
- Includes more than 80 CFD titles.
- Sun Catalog
- Catalyst Solaris Products. Hides a lot of CFD software packages.
