CFD Online Discussion Forums - Monitoring flow rate on patch in OpenFOAM v2012

CFD Online Discussion Forums (https://www.cfd-online.com/Forums/)

- OpenFOAM Post-Processing (https://www.cfd-online.com/Forums/openfoam-post-processing/)

- - Monitoring flow rate on patch in OpenFOAM v2012 (https://www.cfd-online.com/Forums/openfoam-post-processing/237051-monitoring-flow-rate-patch-openfoam-v2012.html)

Monitoring flow rate on patch in OpenFOAM v2012

Hello,

after a 6 year break, I currently have an OpenFOAM project again. For this I use the latest version v2012.
Unfortunately, the keywords have changed over time. I have a model with 4 outlets (out1, out2, out3, out4) I would like to monitor the volume flow [m³/s] or mass flow [kg/s] on these during the simulation.

Solver: simpleFoam

Can someone give me an example of the function in the controlDict?
My old spelling no longer works.

Best wishes

O.Herz

The fieldFunction that you are after is surfaceFieldValue, I think (https://www.openfoam.com/documentati...ieldValue.html). Here's an example of its use for a case where I wanted the massflow-weighted average values of two scalars on a patch called outlet:

Code:

functions

{

    surfaceFieldValue1

    {

        type            surfaceFieldValue;

        libs            ("libfieldFunctionObjects.so");

        enabled         yes;

        writeControl    writeTime;

        log             yes;

        writeFields     no;

        regionType      patch;

        name            outlet;

        operation       weightedAverage;

        weightField     phi;

        fields

        (

            H2O

            T

        );

    }

}

For your application, change out weightedAverage for sum, change the field to phi, and adjust the patch name. You get the idea, hopefully. Good luck.

Hello,

thanky you very much.
It works!

Best Regards

O.Herz

How do I write this to a file?

How do I write this to a file, say flowrate.txt?

Thanks!