Difference between revisions of "User:Hoogs/Presentation/What is OpenFOAM"

Revision as of 13:06, 31 March 2009

OpenFOAM started as a Fortran project at Imperial College, London in the mid 1990's
- Fortran proved unwieldy
- Henry Weller recognised value in the new C++ language, adapted the code and published the first paper outlining the new approach
  - Thought to be the first major scientific application package developed in C++
- What emerged was FOAM (Field Operation And Manipulation)
- Henry and Hrvoje Jasak set up a company and attracted some interest in package sales but it was difficult competing with marketing-driven incumbents like Fluent
- There was a legal dispute between Weller and Jasak which resulted in an agreement to release the source code under the GPL in 2004
- The name was changed to OpenFOAM
- Henry established OpenCFD to provide consulting services that fund continued development
  - OpenCFD continues to grow (currently half a dozen staff based in Reading, UK)
- Hrvoje Jasak has a faculty position at the University of Zagreb and consults to CFD companies
OpenCFD has since released OpenFOAM versions 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4 and the latest, mid-2008 release, 1.5
- Development more cathedral-like with a relatively small number of trusted contributors outside OpenCFD
- Benefits greatly from bug and feature feedback of user community, particularly via the forum
Release 1.5 dropped the FoamX java gui, introduced snappyHexMesh for automated hex mesh creation, added an extensive lagrangian particle tracking library and made simplifications to interfaces for command line applications and utilities, among other things
Current OpenCFD development work includes automated polyhedral mesher and scripting via a C++ interpreter
OpenFOAM is written in and for Linux because the nix operating systems are much more flexible and powerful for high end computational work
- There have been Windows ports of older versions (e.g. via cygwin) but no Windows support is planned.
- Just use linux!... either natively or through a virtual machine such as VirtualBox

@@ Line 3: / Line 3: @@
 ** Henry Weller recognised value in the new [http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/C%2B%2B C++] language, adapted the code and published the [http://www.foamcfd.org/Nabla/main/PDFdocs/CompInPhys98.pdf first paper] outlining the new approach
 *** Thought to be the first major scientific application package developed in C++
-** What emerged was FOAM (Field Operation and manipulation)
+** What emerged was FOAM (Field Operation And Manipulation)
 ** Henry and Hrvoje Jasak set up a [http://www.nabla.co.uk/ company] and attracted some interest in package sales but it was difficult competing with marketing-driven incumbents like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluent,_Inc. Fluent]
-** There was a dispute between Weller and Jasak which resulted in legal action and an agreement to release the source code under the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPL GPL] in 2004
+** There was a legal dispute between Weller and Jasak which resulted in an agreement to release the source code under the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPL GPL] in 2004
 ** The name was changed to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenFOAM OpenFOAM]
 ** Henry established [http://www.opencfd.co.uk/ OpenCFD] to provide consulting services that fund continued development
 *** OpenCFD continues to grow (currently half a dozen staff based in Reading, UK)
 ** Hrvoje Jasak has a faculty position at the University of Zagreb and consults to CFD companies
-* OpenFOAM has since been through versions [http://www.opencfd.co.uk/openfoam/version1.1.html 1.1], [http://www.opencfd.co.uk/openfoam/version1.2.html 1.2], [http://www.opencfd.co.uk/openfoam/version1.3.html 1.3], [http://www.opencfd.co.uk/openfoam/version1.4.html 1.4] and the latest, mid-2008 release, [http://www.opencfd.co.uk/openfoam/doc/ReleaseNotes-1.5.html 1.5]
+* OpenCFD has since released OpenFOAM versions [http://www.opencfd.co.uk/openfoam/version1.1.html 1.1], [http://www.opencfd.co.uk/openfoam/version1.2.html 1.2], [http://www.opencfd.co.uk/openfoam/version1.3.html 1.3], [http://www.opencfd.co.uk/openfoam/version1.4.html 1.4] and the latest, mid-2008 release, [http://www.opencfd.co.uk/openfoam/doc/ReleaseNotes-1.5.html 1.5]
+** Development more [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cathedral_and_the_Bazaar cathedral-like] with a relatively small number of trusted contributors outside OpenCFD
+** Benefits greatly from bug and feature feedback of user community, particularly via the [http://www.cfd-online.com/Forums/openfoam/ forum]
 * Release 1.5 dropped the FoamX java gui, introduced [http://www.opencfd.co.uk/openfoam/doc/snappyHexMesh.html#x26-1480005.4 snappyHexMesh] for automated hex mesh creation, added an extensive lagrangian particle tracking library and made simplifications to interfaces for command line applications and utilities, among other things
-* OpenFOAM is written in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux Linux] because the unix operating systems are much more flexible and powerful for high end computational work
+* Current OpenCFD development work includes automated polyhedral mesher and scripting via a C++ interpreter
-** There have been [http://dpdx.net/openfoam-cygwin/ Windows ports] of older versions (e.g. via cygwin) but no Windows support is planned.  Use linux, either natively or through a virtual machine such as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirtualBox VirtualBox]
+* OpenFOAM is written in and for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux Linux] because the nix operating systems are much more flexible and powerful for high end computational work
+** There have been [http://dpdx.net/openfoam-cygwin/ Windows ports] of older versions (e.g. via cygwin) but no Windows support is planned.
+** Just use linux!... either natively or through a virtual machine such as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirtualBox VirtualBox]