Second OpenFOAM Workshop:

Welcome and Introduction

Hrvoje Jasak
[email protected]

Wikki Ltd, United Kingdom and

FSB, University of Zagreb, Croatia
7-9th June 2007

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Second OpenFOAM Workshop

Welcome to the Second OpenFOAM Workshop

• Activities in the past year
• Dissemination and training events
• Some new developments
◦ Fast linear equation solvers
◦ Multi-matrix and multi-mesh coupling
◦ Start of turbomachinery work
◦ Progress in internal combustion engines simulations: moving valves
◦ Integrated fluid-structure interaction solver
• Establishing collaboration projects based on OpenFOAM

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Activity Over the Last Year

Progress Since the Last Workshop

• Substantial increase in the number of users and developers
• Increased activity on the Forum: getting answers and contributions from a larger
number of people is especially encouraging – thank you!
• Interest from National Research Laboratories: OpenFOAM as a platform for
in-house research projects or collaborative projects
◦ National Research Council (NRC), Canada http://www.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/ working
on fuel cell simulations
◦ National Energy Research Laboratory (NETL), USA
http://www.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/ working on Multiphase Flow with Interphase
eXchanges (MFIX-NG)
◦ US Navy Research Labs, Carderock Division, USA
• Numerous Universities and companies using OpenFOAM both as a general CFD
solver and a research platform: new groups contributing development
• Established OpenFOAM research centres at Politecnico di Milano, Chalmers
University, University College Dublin; other groups ramping up activities
• OpenFOAM in teaching: EU Tempus projects, (my visiting professorships)

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Consultancy and Commercial Support

Consultancy and Support for OpenFOAM Users

• Large-scale use of OpenFOAM as an alternative to commercial CFD solvers
• Numerous consultancy companies using OpenFOAM in commercial projects:
Arup, WS Atkins, The Technology Partnership (UK)
• Local providers of commercial OpenFOAM support and development: Wikki Ltd
(UK, US, Europe), CAE-SC (Japan), Icon-CG (Europe), OpenCFD Ltd, AF-Consult
(Scandinavia) etc.
Commercial Use of OpenFOAM in Industry
• This should be encouraged: more users = more capabilities = better software
• Interest in collaboration between commercial companies and academic centres:
rapid deployment of research results to people who need it
• To achieve this, OpenFOAM development and deployment should be made more
agile: allow companies to develop and support their own versions and extensions
• Need to develop decentralised support and knowledge base to take place of
software support role in commercial CFD companies
• Targeting application-specific feature development and validation through
application working groups

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OpenFOAM Dissemination

Public Training Sessions and Seminars

• SIMDI-06, Gothenburg, Sweden: Introductory workshop to OpenFOAM in
organisation of Gridcore AB http://www.simdi.se/
• Finnish IT Centre for Science: High Performance CFD Simulations with
OpenFOAM http://www.csc.fi
University Visits, Invited Talks and Keynote Presentations (by Hrvoje Jasak)
• University of Trieste, Italy, April 2006
• Oak Ridge National Labs, USA, May 2006
• 5th Congress of Croatian Society of Mechanics, September 2006 (keynote)
• University College Dublin, Ireland, November 2006
• US Navy Research Labs, November 2006
• ETH Zurich, December 2006
• NRC Canada, December 2006
• University of Manchester, February 2007
• Politecnico di Milano, February 2007
We need more public basic training seminars and hands-on programming Workshops

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New Features

Notable New Developments

• Infrastructure developments
◦ Fast linear equation solvers
◦ Multi-matrix and multi-mesh coupling
◦ Start of turbomachinery work: GGI interface prototype
◦ Progress in internal combustion engines simulations: topological changes
◦ Minor improvements in numerics and boundary conditions
• New physical models and solvers
◦ Start of turbomachinery work
◦ Integrated fluid-structure interaction solver
◦ Improved free surface flow solver
◦ New multiphase flow solver, cavitation and porous media treatment

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Fast Linear Solvers

New Generation of Fast Linear Solvers:

• Approximately once every 10 year, a new generation of linear solvers in CFD:
banded matrices (SSIP) in 1980s; Krylov space solvers in 1990s; Algebraic
Multigrid solver around 1998;
• Increase in performance from current solvers approximately factor of 3
• Research performed in collaboration with colleagues at Ansys Fluent: A. Jemcov
and J.P. Maruszewski
New Solver Techniques
• Error reduction: orthogonal error removal techniques
• New generation of preconditioners
• Stabilisation: Reduced Rank Extrapolation, matrix deflation
• Product: Stabilised CG-AMG solvers, new matrix restriction techniques including
Selective AMG (SAMG), better single-level smoothers, optimised choice of AMG
cycle

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Fast Linear Solvers

Computational Example: LES of Forward Facing Step

• Consider turbulent flow over forward facing step at Re = 10000

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Fast Linear Solvers

Computational Example: LES of Forward Facing Step

• Second order accurate in space and time scheme used
• CFL number held at unity
• 2 PISO correctors
• 2 computational meshes: 660 000 and 5 280 000 cells
• Mesh aggressively graded towards the wall
• Computational hardware: 2.16 GHz Intel CoreDuo CPU with 2 GB for the coarse
mesh, while the fine mesh used 4 Intel Itanium II CPUs
• Convergence tolerance for pressure equation set to 1e-06

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Fast Linear Solvers

Preconditioned CG Solver
• Preconditioned CG Solver performance

ICCG
CG-AAMG 2, V, SGS
CG-AAMG 4, V SGS
0.01 CG-AAMG 4, W, ILU
CG-SAMG, W, ILU
residual

0.0001

1e-06

1e-08
0 50 100 150 200
iteration

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Fast Linear Solvers

Preconditioned CG Solver
• Performance of CG-AMG solver, coarse mesh

CG Preconditioner Iter Time, s

Incomplete Cholesky 411 45.67
Coarsener Cycle Smoother
AAMG, 2 V SGS 0/2 44 23.84
AAMG, 4 W SGS 0/2 22 13.63
AAMG, 4 W ILU 0/2 18 11.16
SAMG V SGS 0/2 14 18.38
SAMG V ILU 0/2 12 17.75
SAMG W ILU 0/2 4 22.86

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Fast Linear Solvers

Preconditioned CG Solver
• Execution time test, coarse mesh

Solver Type p-Eqn Time-step

1 CG-AAMG 4 W, ILU 0/2 11.16 s 28.39 s
2 CG-AAMG 4 W, SGS 0/2 13.63 s 31.97 s
3 CG-AAMG 4 W, ILU 2/2 17.29 s 38.18 s
4 CG-SAMG 4 W, ILU 0/2 17.75 s 40.34 s
5 SAMG, V SGS 0/2 18.04 s 40.21 s
AAMG, 4 W, ILU 2/2 25.82 s 49.42 s
RRE AMG 14.40 s 34.69 s
PFE AMG 14.58 s 33.19 s
MPE AMG 15.94 s 34.34 s
ICCG 44.41 s 75.62 s
AMG 54.17 s 93.97 s

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Fast Linear Solvers

Preconditioned CG Solver
• Solver settings in parallel performance test

ID Solver Coarsener Cycle Smoother

1 CG-AMG AAMG, 4 W SGS 2/2
2 CG-AMG AAMG, 4 W ILU 0/2
3 PFEAMG AAMG, 4 W ILU 0/2
4 AMG AAMG, 4 W SGS 0/2
5 AMG AAMG, 4 W ILU 0/2
6 RREAMG AAMG, 4 W ILU 0/2
7 AMG AAMG, 2 V SGS 0/2
8 ICCG

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Fast Linear Solvers

Preconditioned CG Solver
• Execution time test, fine mesh

1 CPU 2 CPUs 4 CPUs

ID Iter Time, s Iter Time, s Iter Time, s
1 22 357.0 21 177.9 22 71.2
2 16 233.1 21 160.7 21 91.7
3 27 374.5 30 220.9 28 117.6
4 52 495.3 45 229.0 40 120.8
5 35 480.2 36 261.3 35 145.9
6 23 344.1 35 276.8 38 172.6
7 97 849.9 129 575.0 109 254.9
8 884 2571.3 913 1385.8 970 502.6

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Fast Linear Solvers

Papers on Linear Solver Development

• Jasak, H. and Jemcov, A. and Maruszewski, J.P.: Preconditioned Linear Solvers
for Large Eddy Simulation, CFD 2007 Conference, CFD Society of Canada
• Jemcov, A. and Maruszewski, J.P. and Jasak, H.: Performance Improvement of
Algebraic Multigrid Solver by Vector Sequence Extrapolation, CFD 2007
Conference, CFD Society of Canada
• Jemcov, A. and Maruszewski, J.P. and Jasak, H.: Stabilisation of Agglomerative
Algebraic Multigrid Solver by Recursive Projection Method, 13th Copper Mountain
Conference on Multigrid Methods, March 2007
• Jemcov, A. and Maruszewski, J.P. and Jasak, H.: Acceleration and Stabilisation of
Algebraic Multigrid Solver Applied to Incompressible Flow Problems, AIAA CFD
Conference 2007
Application of similar techniques to non-linear equations to follow

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Multi-Matrix and Multi-Mesh Coupling

Example: Conjugate Heat Transfer

• Coupling may be established geometrically: adjacent surface pairs
• Each variable is stored only on a mesh where it is active: (U, p, T)
• Choice of conjugate variables is completely arbitrary: e.g. catalytic reactions
• Coupling is established only per-variable: handling a general coupled complex
physics problem rather than conjugate heat transfer problem specifically

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General Grid Interface

General Grid Interface

• Sliding interface mesh modifier couples two mesh components in relative motion to
create a continuous mesh: topological change
• In turbo-machinery simulations, similar coupling problem appears: sliding
rotor-stator interface, non-matching cyclics
• Treatment of coupled boundaries topology change: General Grid Interfaces
◦ Coupled path treatment implicit in discretisation and solvers
◦ Coupling addressing calculated using patch-to-patch interpolation
◦ Special handling for patch evaluation and operator discretisation
◦ Special turbo-specific steady-state discretisation: mixing plane
Sliding rotating interface:
mixing plane

Non−matching cyclic
boundaries

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Internal Combustion Engines

Internal Combustion Engine Simulations

• Object-based setup of topological changes allows simulation of non-standard
engine designs: not limited by small number of mesh templates
• Example: two-stroke engine, with action modelled as sliding interfaces
◦ Uncovered interface = domains connected; covered interface = wall boundary
◦ Mesh layering action accommodates moving piston
• Compressible flow solver with topological change support
• Simulation of fluid flow and scavenging in a two-stroke engine:
Dr. Tommaso Lucchini, Politecnico di Milano

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Fluid-Structure Interaction

Fluid-Structure Interaction in a Single Solver

• OpenFOAM provides numerical models for both fluids and structures;
patch-to-patch interpolation tools and multi-region handling already implemented
• Significant work in integration and generalisation of stress analysis solvers
◦ Stress analysis for non-linear materials: incremental formulation
◦ Handling large deformation: updated Lagrangian formulation
◦ Coupling with external structural solver: sails for racing yachts
• icoFsiFoam: first multi-region integrated FSI solver in OpenFOAM
◦ Identical fluid-to-structure coupling: pressure and deformation transfer
◦ Adding run-time selection for fluids and structures equation set

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Summary

Progress with OpenFOAM

• Overall, a good year – hoping for progress to continue
• Substantial dissemination activities, set to continue
• New people and organisations using OpenFOAM as a development platform
• OpenFOAM-1.4 release by OpenCFD a step backward: less functionality, no
public contributions. We will do something about it
• Exciting new areas of work. More on this during the Workshop by the people
involved in developments

Let the games begin!

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