Getting stared with OpenFOAM
 

Hi dear all,
I would like to have some tips about starting with OpenFOAM. I have read the User Guide and fallow some tutorials, but I am still not autonome with this computing toobox. Where to find some info? Some help? I am a expert in MatLab; and typing help function gives me the syntaxe and so on. Something equivalent in OpenFOAM?
I apologize for this very "low-rated" question, but I did not find any answer on the web...

HI,

sorry I'm afraid that information about openFoam are rarely. but as start you can specify your case and begin to select solver, block your mesh,...etc. in your way you will find questions, you can search for it and consult cfd-online members. by time your knowledge will be accumulated. that is how i started.

good luck

http://www.cfd-online.com/Forums/ope...-new-user.html
http://www.cfd-online.com/Forums/ope...-openfoam.html
http://www.cfd-online.com/Forums/ope...-openfoam.html
http://www.cfd-online.com/Forums/ope...-openfoam.html
http://www.cfd-online.com/Forums/ope...ogramming.html

The search button can do magic.

Thanks a lot, anon_a. It was obvious this question had been allready asex, but I didn't find where!
Have a nice day!

Hi,

by the way there are some tutorial videos on youtube website.

Installation problems
 

hi dear helpers,
I may add that both "users" and "programmers" guides are usefull. I thought the only first was necessary for me, but the the second is also very usefull... Maybe I was over confident about my skills...:o

By the way, I have new problems, about programming.
First, I had to change
allowSystemOperations from 0 to 1
in the file /opt/openfoam201/etc/controlDict
(I had to connect as SuperUser 'cause I didn't have correct rights).

But now, when I run potentialFoam from the cylinder tutorial, it stops with the error:
I think something's wrong in the installation of OF:confused:; do you have any idea to help me?

:p I don't know what I did, but it works now...
Thanks!

Hi dear Foamers,

how to get info on a specific tool?
For example, I would like to know how to use turbulentInlet (user guide p. U-137); none of CFDOnline and OpenFoamWiki searching tools give results...

You might not like the answer:

a) The doxygen documentation, found in
http://www.openfoam.org/docs/cpp/
Just write turbulentInlet in the search box and explore.

b) The code itself. Using "find ./ -name *turbulentInlet*" from src/ I got this
src/finiteVolume/fields/fvPatchFields/derived/turbulentInlet
Off course, you will see practically the same as in the doxygen guide.

If nothing is available in cfd-online or in people's blogs (which is usually not for very specialized stuff) you are on your own.

Good luck...

My starting point for these kind of things is going to the tutorials (type 'tut') and then find out where the turbulentInlet is used: grep turbulentInlet `find`. This gives you some more information about how things are handled in a case. Next step is to browse the source code, where you can find what is being done if you learn to read the code. Also, the .H files give some comments about what is implemented.

Bernhard is right about the tutorials. I just took it for granted that you have already searched them and there is nothing related. Not as unusual as it sounds.

Forces, probes,...
 

Hi!

I would like to take info, post processed data from a case (unsteady LES).
Could anyone teaches me:

1. How to use a probe? I would like to see the pressure at one point, depending on the time.
2. How to calculate the forces? (I don't understand the motorbike tuto)

Thanks