[Bazinga]

Hello,

I am fairly new to OpenFOAM and just trying to get my first simulations going. I tried to use the turbinesiting tutorial as a start for my simulation. After setting up the correct boundary conditions and importing my mesh from fluent I get the following error:

Creating finite volume options from fvOptions

Selecting finite volume options model type actuationDiskSource
Source: disk1
- applying source for all time
- selecting cells using cellSet actuationDisk1


--> FOAM FATAL ERROR:
Cannot find directory "polyMesh/sets" in times 0 down to constant

From function Time::findInstance(const fileName&, const word&, const IOobject::readOption, const word&)
in file db/Time/findInstance.C at line 142.

FOAM exiting


If I understand the error message correct, he is looking for a file "sets" in constant/polyMesh, but I don't know what this file is for.

Best regards

[cnsidero]

Is it the solver (simpleFoam) that throws this error or fluentMeshToFoam? Either way, here's the generic explanation of how this tutorial is setup.

To model the presence of the turbine rotor, a momentum source term is used. The mechanics of adding the source term in that tutorial is through fvOptions - a generic method to add a momentum source term at run-time. The particular type used is called "actuationDiskSource". The type and necessary parameters are specified in the ./system/fvOptions file. You'll notice in that file the selectionMode is "cellSet" with it's name on the next line. A cellSet is simply a group of "marked" cells on which you can perform specific operations - in this case, applying a momentum source. cellSet's (or any other type of sets) are stored in the ./constant/polyMesh/sets/ directory.

If you look in the Allrun script of the tutorial, you'll notice it runs "topoSet" - this is the step that creates the cellSet's. Unless provided, "topoSet" looks for ./system/topoSetDict for the definitions so look in that file for how it works.

Since you're using your own mesh, you need to figure out where you want your actuator disk to be applied and run "topoSet" to create the cellSet before running the solver. Dig around the OpenFOAM wiki and the forums for help on using topoSet

Let me finish by saying, the generation of the mesh and cellSet are done in parallel so the final mesh and sets reside in the ./processor*/constant/polyMesh/ directories rather than simply the ./constant/polyMesh/ directory.

[Bazinga]

Dear Mr. Sideroff,

thank you very much for your reply.

The error was indeed when running simpleFoam. I used this tutorial because of the modeling of the atmopsheric boundary layer but never intended to use a wind turbine. I commented out the lines in the fvOptions file and now it works.

Thanks again, have a good day.