Chapter 4 OpenFOAM cases
This chapter deals with the file structure and organisation of OpenFOAM cases. Normally, a user would assign a name to a case, e.g. the tutorial case of flow in a cavity is simply named cavity. This name becomes the name of a directory in which all the case files and subdirectories are stored. The case directories themselves can be located anywhere but we recommend they are within a run subdirectory of the user’s project directory, i.e.$HOME/OpenFOAM/${USER}-1.6 as described at the beginning of chapter 2. One advantage of this is that the $FOAM_RUN environment variable is set to $HOME/OpenFOAM/${USER}-1.6/run by default; the user can quickly move to that directory by executing a preset alias, run, at the command line.
The tutorial cases that accompany the OpenFOAM distribution provide useful examples of the case directory structures. The tutorials are located in the $FOAM_TUTORIALS directory, reached quickly by executing the tut alias at the command line. Users can view tutorial examples at their leisure while reading this chapter.
4.2 Basic input/output file format
4.2.1 General syntax rules
4.2.2 Dictionaries
4.2.3 The data file header
4.2.4 Lists
4.2.5 Scalars, vectors and tensors
4.2.6 Dimensional units
4.2.7 Dimensioned types
4.2.8 Fields
4.2.9 Directives and macro substitutions
4.3 Time and data input/output control
4.4 Numerical schemes
4.4.1 Interpolation schemes
4.4.2 Surface normal gradient schemes
4.4.3 Gradient schemes
4.4.4 Laplacian schemes
4.4.5 Divergence schemes
4.4.6 Time schemes
4.4.7 Flux calculation
4.5 Solution and algorithm control
4.5.1 Linear solver control
4.5.2 Solution under-relaxation
4.5.3 PISO and SIMPLE algorithms
4.5.4 Other parameters