Main OFUtilities

These are the utilities distributed with OpenFOAM

1 Error estimation

• estimateScalarError Estimates the error in the solution for a scalar transport equation in the standard form.

• icoErrorEstimate Estimates error for the incompressible laminar CFD application icoFoam.

• icoMomentError Estimates error for the incompressible laminar CFD application icoFoam.

• momentScalarError Estimates the error in the solution for a scalar transport equation in the standard form.

2 Mesh

2.1 Conversion

• ansysToFoam Converts an ANSYS input mesh file, exported from I-DEAS, to OpenFOAM format (formerly called ideasToFoam).

• ccm26ToFoam Converts a STAR-CCM mesh to OpenFOAM format.

• cfx4ToFoam Converts a CFX 4 mesh to OpenFOAM format.

• fluent3DMeshToFoam Converts a Fluent mesh (in ASCII format) to OpenFOAM format.

• fluentMeshToFoam Converts a Fluent mesh (in ASCII format) to OpenFOAM format including multiple region and region boundary.

• foamMeshToFluent Writes out the OpenFOAM mesh in Fluent mesh format.

• foamToStarMesh Reads an OpenFOAM mesh and writes it in PROSTAR (v4) format.

• foamToSurface Reads an OpenFOAM mesh and writes the boundaries in surface format.

• gambitToFoam Converts a GAMBIT mesh to OpenFOAM format.

• gmshToFoam Reads .msh file as written by Gmsh. Does not use physical type of mesh quantities yet.

• ideasUnvToFoam Converts a I-DEAS or Salome mesh to OpenFOAM format

• kivaToFoam Converts a KIVA3v grid to OpenFOAM format.

• mshToFoam Reads .msh format generated by the Adventure system.

• netgenNeutralToFoam Converts a Netgen mesh to OpenFOAM format.

• plot3dToFoam Plot3d mesh (ascii/formatted format) converter.

• sammToFoam Converts a STAR-CD SAMM mesh to OpenFOAM format.

• star3ToFoam Converts a STAR-CD (v3) PROSTAR mesh into OpenFOAM format.

• star4ToFoam Converts a STAR-CD (v4) PROSTAR mesh into OpenFOAM format.

• tetgenToFoam Reads .ele and .node and .face files as written by tetgen.

• writeMeshObj For mesh debugging: writes mesh as three separate OBJ files which can be viewed with e.g. javaview.

2.2 Generation

• blockMesh A multi-block mesh generator.

• extrudeMesh Extrude mesh from existing patch (by default outwards facing normals; optional flips faces) or from patch read from file.

• extrude2DMesh Takes 2D mesh (all faces 2 points only, no front and back faces) and creates a 3D mesh by extruding with specified thickness.

• extrudeToRegionMesh Extrude faceZones into separate mesh (as a different region), e.g. for creating liquid film regions.

• makePolyMesh Constructs a polyMesh from a shapeMesh.

• snappyHexMesh Adjusts (refine, snap and add layers) an existing mesh to specified boundary surfaces and refinement regions.

2.3 Manipulation

• attachMesh Attach topologically detached mesh using prescribed mesh modifiers.

• autoPatch Divides external faces into patches based on (user supplied) feature angle.

• cellSet Selects a cell set through a dictionary.

• checkMesh Checks validity of a mesh.

• createBaffles Makes internal faces into boundary faces. Does not duplicate points, unlike mergeOrSplitBaffles.

• couplePatches Utility to reorder cyclic and processor patches. Is now all built-in into morphing so reuse that code.

• createPatch Utility to create patches out of selected boundary faces. Faces come either from existing patches or from a faceSet.

• deformedGeom Deforms a polyMesh using a displacement field U and a scaling factor supplied as an argument.

• faceSet Selects a face set through a dictionary.

• fieldToCellSet Select cells based on field. Give min and max to select.

• flattenMesh Flatten the front and back planes of a 2D cartesian mesh.

• insideCells Picks up cells with cell centre ’inside’ of surface. Requires surface to be closed and singly connected.

• mergeMeshes Merge two meshes.

• mergeOrSplitBaffles Detects faces that share points (baffles). Either merge them or duplicate the points.

• mirrorMesh Mirrors a mesh around a given plane.

• moveDynamicMesh Mesh motion and topological mesh changes utility.

• moveEngineMesh Solver for moving meshes for engine calculations.

• moveMesh Solver for moving meshes.

• objToVTK Read obj line (not surface!) file and convert into vtk.

• polyDualMesh Calculate the dual of a polyMesh. Adheres to all the feature and patch edges.

• pointSet Selects a point set through a dictionary.

• refineMesh Utility to refine cells in multiple directions.

• refineShapeMesh Refines a region of a shapeMesh according to parameters specified in a refineShapeMeshDict dictionary.

• renumberMesh Renumbers the cell list in order to reduce the bandwidth, reading and renumbering all fields from all the time directories.

• rotateMesh Rotates the mesh and fields from the direction n1 to the direction n2.

• scalePoints Scales the mesh points in the polyMesh directory by a factor supplied as an argument.

• setSet Manipulate a cell/face/point/ set or zone interactively.

• setsToZones Add pointZones/faceZones/cellZones to the mesh from similar named pointSets/faceSets/cellSets

• singleCellMesh Removes all but one cells of the mesh. Used to generate mesh and fields that can be used for boundary-only data. Might easily result in illegal mesh though so only look at boundaries in paraview.

• splitMesh Splits mesh by making internal faces external. Uses attachDetach.

• splitMeshRegions Splits mesh into multiple regions.

• stitchMesh "Stitches" a mesh.

• subsetMesh Selects a section of mesh based on a cellSet.

• tetDecomposition Takes a mesh and decomposes it into tetrahedra using a face-cell centre decomposition.

• topoSet Operates on cellSets/faceSets/pointSets through a dictionary.

• transformPoints Transforms the mesh points in the polyMesh directory according to the translate, rotate and scale options.

• zipUpMesh Reads in a mesh with hanging vertices and zips up the cells to guarantee that all polyhedral cells of valid shape are closed.

2.4 Other tools

• autoRefineMesh Utility to refine cells near to a surface.

• collapseEdges Collapse short edges and combines edges that are in line.

• combinePatchFaces Checks for multiple patch faces on same cell and combines them. These result from e.g. refined neighbouring cells getting removed, leaving 4 exposed faces with same owner.

• modifyMesh Manipulates mesh elements.

• PDRMesh Mesh and field preparation utility for PDR type simulations.

• refineHexMesh Refines a hex mesh by 2x2x2 cell splitting.

• refinementLevel Tries to figure out what the refinement level is on refined cartesian meshes. Run before snapping.

• refineWallLayer Utility to refine cells next to patches.

• removeFaces Utility to remove faces (combines cells on both sides).

• selectCells Select cells in relation to surface.

• splitCells Utility to split cells with flat faces

3 Surface mesh

• surfaceAdd Add two surfaces. Does geometric merge on points. Does not check for overlapping/intersecting triangles

• surfaceAutoPatch Patches surface according to feature angle. Like autoPatch

• surfaceCheck

• surfaceClean removes baffles, collapses small edges by removing triangles and converts sliver triangles into split edges by projecting point onto base of triangle

• surfaceCoarsen Surface coarsening using "bunnylod"

• surfaceConvert Converts from one surface mesh format to another

• surfaceFeatureConvert Convert between edgeMesh formats

• surfaceFeatureExtract Extracts and writes surface features to file

• surfaceFind Finds nearest face and vertex

• surfaceInertia Calculates the inertia tensor and principal axes and moments of a command line specified triSurface. Inertia can either be of the solid body or of a thin shell

• surfaceMeshConvert Convert between surface formats with optional scaling or transformations (rotate/translate) on a coordinateSystem

• surfaceMeshConvertTesting Converts from one surface mesh format to another, but primarily used for testing functionality

• surfaceMeshExport Export from surfMesh to various third-party surface formats with optional scaling or transformations (rotate/translate) on a coordinateSystem

• surfaceMeshImport Import from various third-party surface formats into surfMesh with optional scaling or transformations (rotate/translate) on a coordinateSystem

• surfaceMeshInfo Miscellaneous information about surface meshes

• surfaceMeshTriangulate Extracts triSurface from a polyMesh. Triangulates all boundary faces. Region numbers on triangles are the patch numbers of the polyMesh. Optionally only triangulates named patches

• surfaceOrient Set normal consistent with respect to a user provided ’outside’ point. If -inside the point is considered inside

• surfacePointMerge Merges points on surface if they are within absolute distance. Since absolute distance use with care!

• surfaceRedistributePar (Re)distribution of triSurface. Either takes an undecomposed surface or an already decomposed surface and redistribute it so each processor has all triangles that overlap its mesh

• surfaceRefineRedGreen Refine by splitting all three edges of triangle (’red’ refinement). Neighbouring triangles (which are not marked for refinement get split in half (’green’) refinement. (R. Verfuerth, ”A review of a posteriori error estimation and adaptive mesh refinement techniques”, Wiley-Teubner, 1996)

• surfaceSmooth Example of a simple laplacian smoother

• surfaceSplitByPatch Writes regions of triSurface to separate files

• surfaceSplitNonManifolds Takes multiply connected surface and tries to split surface at multiply connected edges by duplicating points. Introduces concept of - borderEdge. Edge with 4 faces connected to it. - borderPoint. Point connected to exactly 2 borderEdges. - borderLine. Connected list of borderEdges

• surfaceSubset A surface analysis tool which sub-sets the triSurface to choose only a part of interest. Based on subsetMesh

• surfaceToPatch Reads surface and applies surface regioning to a mesh. Uses boundaryMesh to do the hard work

• surfaceTransformPoints Transform (scale/rotate) a surface. Like transformPoints but for surfaces

4 Miscellaneous

• expandDictionary Read the dictionary provided as an argument, expand the macros etc. and write the resulting dictionary to standard output

• foamConvert21To22 Converts the following case dictionaries from 2.1 to 2.2 syntax: - fvSchemes - fvSolution (created from fvTolerances) - (controlDict) - for parallel processed cases, processor numbering updated from 1,2,... to 0,1,

• foamDebugSwitches Write out all library debug switches.

• foamFormatConvert Converts all IOobjects associated with a case into the format specified in the controlDict

• foamInfoExec Interrogates a case and prints information to screen.

• patchSummary Writes fields and boundary condition info for each patch at each requested time instance

5 Parallel processing

• decomposePar Automatically decomposes a mesh and fields of a case for parallel execution of OpenFOAM.

• reconstructPar Reconstructs a mesh and fields of a case that is decomposed for parallel execution of OpenFOAM.

• reconstructParMesh Reconstructs a mesh using geometric information only

• redistributeMeshPar Redistributes existing decomposed mesh and fields according to the current settings in the decomposeParDict file

6 Post-processing

6.1 Data converters

• foamDataToFluent Translates OpenFOAM data to Fluent format.

• foamToDX Translates OpenFOAM data to OpenDX format.

• foamToEnsight Translates OpenFOAM data to EnSight format.

• foamToEnsightParts Translates OpenFOAM data to Ensight format. An Ensight part is created for each cellZone and patch

• foamToFieldview Write out the OpenFOAM mesh in Fieldview-UNS format (binary). See Fieldview Release 8 Reference Manual - Appendix D (Unstructured Data Format) Borrows various from uns/write_binary_uns.c from FieldView dist.

• foamToFieldview9 Write out the OpenFOAM mesh in Version 3.0 Fieldview-UNS format (binary). See Fieldview Release 9 Reference Manual - Appendix D (Unstructured Data Format) Borrows various from uns/write_binary_uns.c from FieldView dist.

• foamToGMV Translates OpenFOAM data to GMV readable files.

• foamToTecplot360 Tecplot binary file format writer

• foamToVTK Legacy VTK file format writer. - handles volScalar, volVector, pointScalar, pointVector fields. - mesh topo changes. - both ascii and binary. - single time step writing. - write subset only. - automatic decomposition of cells; polygons on boundary undecomposed since handled by vtk

• smapToFoam Translates a STAR-CD SMAP data file into OpenFOAM field format.

6.2 Graphics

• dxFoamExec Post-processing graphics using openDX.

• ensight74FoamExec Module for EnSight 7.6 to read OpenFOAM data directly without translation.

• ensight76FoamExec Module for EnSight 7.6 to read OpenFOAM data directly without translation.

• ensightFoamReader EnSight library module to read OpenFOAM data directly without translation

• fieldview9Reader Reader module for Fieldview 9 to read OpenFOAM mesh and data

6.3 Lagrangian simulation

• particleTracks Generates a VTK file of particle tracks for cases that were computed using a tracked-parcel-type cloud

• steadyParticleTracks Generates a VTK file of particle tracks for cases that were computed using a steady-state cloud. NOTE: case must be re-constructed (if running in parallel) before use

6.4 Patch data

• patchAverage Calculates the average of the specified field over the specified patch

• patchIntegrate Calculates the integral of the specified field over the specified patch

6.5 Scalar fields

• pPrime2 Calculates and writes the scalar field of pPrime2 ($(p - \bar{p})^2$) at each time

6.6 Sampling

• probeLocations Probe locations

• sample Sample field data with a choice of interpolation schemes, sampling options and write formats.

• sampleSurface Surface sampling. Runs in parallel (but does not merge points).

6.7 Stress fields

• Rcomponents Calculates and writes the scalar fields of the six components of the Reynolds stress R for each time in a database.

• stressComponents Calculates and writes the scalar fields of the six components of the stress tensor sigma for each time in a database.

6.8 Turbulence

• createTurbulenceFields Creates a full set of turbulence fields

• R Calculates and writes the Reynolds stress R for the current time step.

6.9 Velocity field

• Co Calculates and writes the Co number as a volScalarField obtained from field phi.

• divU Calculates and writes the divergence of velocity field U at each time in a database.

• enstrophy Calculates and writes the enstrophy of velocity field U at each time in a database.

• flowType Calculates and writes the flowType of velocity field U

• Lambda2 Calculates and writes the second largest eigenvalue of the sum of the square of the symmetrical and anti-symmetrical parts of the velocity gradient tensor, at each time in a database.

• Mach Calculates and writes the local Mach number from the velocity field U at each time in a database.

• magGradU Calculates and writes the scalar magnitude of velocity field U at each time in a database.

• magU Calculates and writes the scalar magnitude of the gradient of the velocity field U at each time in a database.

• Pe Calculates and writes the Pe number as a surfaceScalarField obtained from field phi at each time in a database.

• Q Calculates and writes the second invariant of the velocity gradient tensor for each time in a database.

• streamFunction Calculates and writes the stream function of velocity field U at each time in a database.

• Ucomponents Writes the three scalar fields, Ux, Uy and Uz, for each component of the velocity field U at each time in a database.

• uprime Calculates and writes the scalar field of uprime ($\sqrt{\frac{2}{3}k}$) at each time in a database.

• vorticity Calculates and writes the vorticity of velocity field U at each time in a database.

6.10 Walls

• checkYPlus Calculates and reports yPlus for all wall patches, for each time in a database.

• wallGradU Calculates and writes the gradient of U at the wall, wallGradU, for the current time step.

• wallHeatFlux Calculates and writes the heat flux for all patches as the boundary field of a volScalarField and also prints the integrated flux for all wall patches

• wallShearStress Calculates and writes the wall shear stress for the specified times

• yPlusLES Calculates the yPlus for all wall patches, for the specified times

• yPlusRAS Calculates and reports yPlus for all wall patches, for the specified times when using RAS turbulence models

6.11 Miscellaneous

• dsmcFieldsCalc Calculate intensive fields (U and T) from averaged extensive fields from a DSMC calculation

• engineCompRatio Calculate the geometric compression ratio. Note that if you have valves and/or extra volumes it will not work, since it calculates the volume at BDC and TCD.

• execFlowFunctionObjects Execute the set of functionObjects specified in the selected dictionary (which defaults to system/controlDict) for the selected set of times. Alternative dictionaries should be placed in the system/ folder

• foamCalc Generic utility for simple field calculations at specified times

• foamListTimes List times using timeSelector

• liftDrag Calculates the lift and drag for each time in a database.

• pdfPlot Generates a graph of a probability distribution function

• postChannel Post-processes data from channel flow calculations.

• ptot For each time: calculate the total pressure.

• wdot Calculates and writes wdot for each time.

• writeCellCentres Write the three components of the cell centres as volScalarFields so they can be used in postprocessing in thresholding

7 Pre-processing

• applyBoundaryLayer Apply a simplified boundary-layer model to the velocity and turbulence fields based on the 1/7th power-law.

• applyWallFunctionBoundaryConditions Updates OpenFOAM RAS cases to use the new (v1.6) wall function framework.

• boxTurb Makes a box of turbulence which conforms to a given energy spectrum and is divergence free.

• changeDictionary Utility to change dictionary entries, e.g. can be used to change the patch type in the field and polyMesh/boundary files.

• dsmcInitialise Initialise a case for dsmcFoam by reading the initialisation dictionary system/dsmcInitialise

• engineSwirl Generates a swirling flow for engine calculations.

• faceAgglomerate

• foamUpgradeCyclics Tool to upgrade mesh and fields for split cyclics.

• foamUpgradeFvSolution Simple tool to upgrade the syntax of system/fvSolution::solvers

• FoamX Case management tool. Only available until OpenFOAM version 1.4

• mapFields Maps volume fields from one mesh to another, reading and interpolating all fields present in the time directory of both cases. Parallel and non-parallel cases are handled without the need to reconstruct them first.

• mdInitialise Initialises fields for a molecular dynamics (MD) simulation.

• setFields Set values on a selected set of cells/patchfaces through a dictionary.

• viewFactorGen

• wallFunctionTable Generates a table suitable for use by tabulated wall functions.

8 Thermophysical

• adiabaticFlameT Calculates the adiabatic flame temperature for a given fuel over a range of unburnt temperatures and equivalence ratios.

• chemkinToFoam Converts CHEMKIN 3 thermodynamics and reaction data files into OpenFOAM format

• equilibriumCO Calculates the equilibrium level of carbon monoxide.

• equilibriumFlameT Calculates the equilibrium flame temperature for a given fuel and pressure for a range of unburnt gas temperatures and equivalence ratios; the effects of dissociation on $O_2$, $H_2O$ and $CO_2$ are included.

• mixtureAdiabaticFlameT Calculates the adiabatic flame temperature for a given mixture at a given temperature.

• Sl Calculates and prints the laminar flame speed of a given fuel at a given pressure (bar), temperature (K) and equivalence ratio.