[esujby]

Hello,

I am completely new to OpenFOAM and would really appreciate any input or guidance you can provide on how to set up a case for the problem-discussed bellow.

I have conducted an optical ray tracing analysis on software called tonatiuh and did the post processing on Mathematica. The result of this procedure is a flux distribution profile at the aperture of a solar receiver. The 3D flux distribution profile can be exported in STL and VTK file formats, which are both OpenFOAM compatible i assume. Also, the flux profile can also be exported in a table format (100 x 100). Meaning
The 3D flux profile has energy density (W/m2) on the Z-axis, and the X, and Y-axis represent the cross section of the aperture (spot focus radius, r=3.0 cm).

The fundamental issue is coupling the exported 3D flux profile from Mathematica (in .STL or .VTK formats) with OpenFOAM software and using the flux profile as a radiation (heat source) boundary condition.

Also, I am using a Macpro with 64gb RAM and 12 cores. However 3d meshing using netgen on salome seems to take a very long time and always fails due to “ overlapping boundary”. So now am planning on using SnappyHexMesh, as it seems like the best method to apply.

kind regards