MAPFIELDS WALL HEAT FLUX RADIOMTER

v2512: New and improved post-processing

Function objects: Improved mapFields

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The mapFields functionObject has been extended to handle mesh motion.

A typical input dictionary might be:

{
    // Mandatory entries
    type            mapFields;
    libs            (fieldFunctionObjects);
    mapRegion       myTetMesh;
    mapMethod       cellVolumeWeight;
    consistent      yes;
    fields          (U); // ("U.*" "p.*");
}

Note that in the example above the destination mesh (mapRegion) has been generated separately using the cellDecomposer functionObject (which can decompose cells into tets).

The image below shows the result of mapping the velocity field from the (moving) mixerVesselAMI2D tutorial to a static mesh.

 

Source code

Gitlab issue

Function objects: Improved wallHeatFlux and new gauge model

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Heat-flux gauges are physical measurement tools placed on the walls of experimental setups. Most are water cooled, so their temperature is differs from that of the surrounding wall.

Previously, simulating these instruments required creating small dedicated patches for each gauge location so that OpenFOAM’s wallHeatFlux function object which complicted mesh generation and case setup.

The new gauge wall-heat flux post-processing calculates the convective and radiative heat flux through heat-flux gauges without creating separate patches. These gauges can be specified at certain locations with configurable temperature, absorptivity, and emissivity properties. The output is provided as separate files for convective, radiative and total heat flux predictions.

Additional refactoring of the wallHeatFlux function object provisions for further pluggable heat flux models in the future. Note that the updates include backward compatibility with existing wallHeatFlux setups. A minimal example usage for the gauge model is as follows:

FOwallHeatFlux
{
    // Mandatory entries
    type        wallHeatFlux;
    libs        (fieldFunctionObjects);
    model       gauge;  // or 'wall' for the existing wallHeatFlux model
    Tgauge      <scalar>;
    patch       <word>;

    // Optional entries
    absorptivity  <scalar>;
    emissivity    <scalar>;
    T             <word>;
    qin           <word>;
    alphat        <word>;
    convective    <bool>;
    radiative     <bool>;
    writeFields   <bool>;

    // Inherited entries
    ...
}

Source code

Tutorial

Merge request

Function objects: New radiometer probes model

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The radiometerProbes function object enables the monitoring of incident radiative heat flux at arbitrary locations within computational domains. This advancement extends radiation analysis capabilities beyond boundary surfaces, supporting applications such as radiation sensor placement studies and internal thermal environment assessment.

Previously, incident radiative heat flux (qin) calculations were limited to boundary patch faces, restricting analysis to surface locations. Engineers and researchers requiring radiation data at interior points had no direct sampling mechanism. The new function object fills this gap by leveraging OpenFOAM’s probes sampling infrastructure to capture directional incident radiation at user-specified domain locations.

A minimal example showing the radiometerProbes function object is as follows:

radiometer
{
    // Mandatory entries
    type                radiometerProbes;
    libs                (utilityFunctionObjects);
    probeLocations      (<vectorList>);
    probeNormals        (<vectorList>);

    // Inherited entries
    ...
}

Source code

Merge request