OpenFOAM comprises many applications, primarily designed to be driven by the command line. Whilst sometimes unfamiliar to new users, this interface provides the most flexible means by which to control the phases of case set-up, execution and evaluation of results, and lends itself to automation and batch-processing.
Applications are typically invoked using commands of the form:
<application> [OPTIONS] <arguments>
More detailed usage information is available using the help option; for example, when applied to the blockMesh application as:
blockMesh -help
the following text is presented:
Usage: blockMesh [OPTIONS] Options: -blockTopology Write block edges and centres as obj files and exit -case <dir> Specify case directory to use (instead of the cwd) -dict <file> Alternative dictionary for the blockMesh description -noClean Do not remove any existing polyMesh/ directory or files -region <name> Specify alternative mesh region -sets Write cellZones as cellSets too (for processing purposes) -time <time> Specify a time to write mesh to (default: constant) -doc Display documentation in browser -help Display short help and exit -help-compat Display compatibility options and exit -help-full Display full help and exit Block mesh generator. The ordering of vertex and face labels within a block as shown below. For the local vertex numbering in the sequence 0 to 7: Faces 0, 1 (x-direction) are left, right. Faces 2, 3 (y-direction) are front, back. Faces 4, 5 (z-direction) are bottom, top. 7 ---- 6 f5 |\ |\ f3 | | 4 ---- 5 \ | 3 |--- 2 | \ | \| \| f2 f4 0 ---- 1 Y Z \ | f0 ------ f1 \| O--- X Using: OpenFOAM-v1906 (1906) (see www.OpenFOAM.com) Build: v1906 Arch: LSB;label=32;scalar=64
Moving around the source code and cases is easily performed using standard linux commands, e.g.
ls
: list directory contentscd
: change directoryIn addition, several aliases are available which provide short cuts to many OpenFOAM directories. These include:
foam
: change to the main OpenFOAM project directorysrc
: change to the top-level source directorysol
: change to the top-level solver directoryutil
: change to the top-level utilities directorytut
: change to the top-level tutorial directoryCommand line tab completion of OpenFOAM applications presents users with selections that are tailored for the current action. For example, issuing
checkMesh <TAB> <TAB>
returns the list of available options for the checkMesh
utility:
-allGeometry -latestTime -roots -help -allTopology -meshQuality -time -help-man -case -noFunctionObjects -writeAllFields -help-notes -constant -noTopology -writeFields -help-full -decomposeParDict -noZero -writeSets -fileHandler -parallel -doc -hostRoots -region -doc-source
Many options require additional user input, shown by the -option <value>
type entries when requesting help via the -help
option as shown in the previous blockMesh example.
If using the -time
option, the completion will limit the options to the list of availabe times, e.g. after running the tutorial:
Invoking the following:
checkMesh -time <TAB> <TAB>
returns:
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
Multi-region cases are notoriously complex to set-up and process. The -region
option will limit the available options to the list of regions, e.g. applied to the tutorial:
Invoking the following:
checkMesh -region <TAB> <TAB>
returns:
air porous
Manual pages provide a straightforward interface to access the options available to all OpenFOAM applications. See the full list of options here:
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