[CTRigoudy]

Hi everyone ! This might be an easy question, I am learning OF by myself so still struggling with basic stuffs.

I would like to define a simple rectangular geometry (sketch bellow), including wall thicknesses. I defined 4 independant blocks because I want to study the effect of the lateral wall material onto the way they heat the liquid inside the volume. I want to heat on the green surfaces in the middle of each lateral wall.
The number are my vertices, in red when they are behind (0 is (0 0 0) and 16 is (0 0 0.1).

in the blocks, I defined the large rectangle that includes everything.

questions :
1) Where and how do I specify the walls' (roof, floor) material ? (steel, then copper ...etc.
2) where and how do I specify the temperature of the small heating surfaces (in green on the sketch) ?

For the second question I found how to heat by the whole lateral wall, now I want to heat at a specific area (and look for conduction through the wall, then to the liquid). I specified the vertices of thoses surfaces already.

as for now the blockMeshDict looks like this :

/*--------------------------------*- C++ -*----------------------------------*\
| ========= | |
| \\ / F ield | OpenFOAM: The Open Source CFD Toolbox |
| \\ / O peration | Version: v2212 |
| \\ / A nd | Website: www.openfoam.com |
| \\/ M anipulation | |
\*---------------------------------------------------------------------------*/
FoamFile
{
version 2.0;
format ascii;
class dictionary;
object blockMeshDict;
}
// * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * //


scale 0.1;

vertices
(
(0 0 0)
(16.83 0 0)
(0 1 0)
(0.34 1 0)
(16.49 1 0)
(16.83 1 0)
(0 31.5 0)
(16.83 31.5 0)
(0 38.5 0)
(16.83 38.5 0)
(0 55 0)
(0.34 55 0)
(16.49 55 0)
(16.83 55 0)
(0 56 0)
(16.83 56 0)
(0 0 0.1)
(16.83 0 0.1)
(0 1 0.1)
(0.34 1 0.1)
(16.49 1 0.1)
(16.83 1 0.1)
(0 31.5 0.1)
(16.83 31.5 0.1)
(0 38.5 0.1)
(16.83 38.5 0.1)
(0 55 0.1)
(0.34 55 0.1)
(16.49 55 0.1)
(16.83 55 0.1)
(0 56 0.1)
(16.83 56 0.1)

);

blocks
(
hex (0 1 15 14 16 17 31 30) (99 330 1) simpleGrading (1 1 1)

);

edges
(
);

boundary
(
leftWall
{
type wall;
faces
(
(0 16 30 14)
);
}
rightWall
{
type wall;
faces
(
(1 17 31 15)
);
}
lowerWall
{
type wall;
faces
(
(0 1 17 16)
);
}
upperWall
{
type wall;
faces
(
(14 15 31 30)
);
}
/* leftHeater this is commented because not working
{
type wall;
faces
(
(6 22 24 8)
);
}
rightHeater
{
type wall;
faces
(
(7 9 25 23)
);
} */
);

mergePatchPairs
(
);


// ************************************************** *********************** //


Thanks a lot to the ones willing to help me, I hope it's not too dumb or too advanced.

[Yann]

Hello Charles,

Do you know what solver you intend to use?

Best way to start would be to pick the proper solver to deal with the type of physics you want to simulate, then check the corresponding tutorials to see how to setup such cases.

Your case looks like a job for chtMultiRegionFoam (conjugate heat transfer). However, if you need to solve multiphase flow + conjugate heat transfer, you may have to pick another OpenFOAM version.

There are 2 main development branches for OpenFOAM:

• The OpenFOAM foundation branch (openfoam.org): last version is OpenFOAM-11
• The ESI-OpenCFD branch (openfoam.com): last version is OpenFOAM-v2306

These branches have been evolving separately since 2016, and the latest versions have significant differences.

In the OpenCFD branch, AFAIK you won't be able to deal with conjugate heat transfer + multiphase flow out of the box. It should be possible in the latest version of the OpenFOAM foundation branch.

I'm saying this because I noticed your blockMeshDict header mentions OpenFOAM-v2212.

Regards,
Yann