This prevents excessive duplication of surface geometry and makes
post-processing tasks in paraview more convenient.
The Nastran and Star-CD surface formats were found not to work, so
support for these output types has been removed. Raw, VTK, Foam and
Ensight formats are all still available.
With this change each functionObject provides the list of fields required so
that the postProcess utility can pre-load them before executing the list of
functionObjects. This provides a more convenient interface than using the
-field or -fields command-line options to postProcess which are now redundant.
A number of changes have been made to the surfaceFieldValue and
volFieldValue function objects to improve their usability and
performance, and to extend them so that similar duplicate functionality
elsewhere in OpenFOAM can be removed.
Weighted operations have been removed. Weighting for averages and sums
is now triggered simply by the existence of the "weightField" or
"weightFields" entry. Multiple weight fields are now supported in both
functions.
The distinction between oriented and non-oriented fields has been
removed from surfaceFieldValue. There is now just a single list of
fields which are operated on. Instead of oriented fields, an
"orientedSum" operation has been added, which should be used for
flowRate calculations and other similar operations on fluxes.
Operations minMag and maxMag have been added to both functions, to
calculate the minimum and maximum field magnitudes respectively. The min
and max operations are performed component-wise, as was the case
previously.
In volFieldValue, minMag and maxMag (and min and mag operations when
applied to scalar fields) will report the location, cell and processor
of the maximum or minimum value. There is also a "writeLocation" option
which if set will write this location information into the output file.
The fieldMinMax function has been made obsolete by this change, and has
therefore been removed.
surfaceFieldValue now operates in parallel without accumulating the
entire surface on the master processor for calculation of the operation.
Collecting the entire surface on the master processor is now only done
if the surface itself is to be written out.
All function objects now re-read as a result of run-time modifications
to the system/controlDict.
Function objects that write log files (via the logFiles class) will now
generate a new postProcessing/<funcName>/<time> directory as a result of
either restart or run-time modification. Log files will therefore never
be overwritten by restart or run-time modification, except for when a
case is restarted at the same time as a previous execution (e.g.,
repeated runs at the start time).
If the surfaceFieldValue function object is used to compute an
area-normal average or integral of a vector quantity, the result will
now be correctly written out as a scalar.
Previously surfaceFieldValue was limited to writing the same type as the
input field. A vector area-normal average or integral therefore had to
be written out as a vector. This was done by setting the x component to
the result, and the y and z components to zero. This was considered to
be counter-intuitive.
A volumetric flow rate through a tri-surface can now be obtained using
the volumetricFlowRateTriSurface preconfigured function object, using
the following entry in system/controlDict:
fuctions
{
#includeFunc "volumetricFlowRateTriSurface(name=surface.stl)"
}
Where "surface.stl" is a tri-surface file in the constant/triSurface
directory. An example of this has been added to the
incompressible/pimpleFoam/RAS/impeller tutorial case.
Note that when possible, it is preferable to use the flowRatePatch or
flowRateFaceZone functions, as these make direct use of the flux and
therefore report a value that is exactly that computed by the solver.
volumetricFlowRateTriSurface, by contrast, does interpolation of the
velocity field which introduces error.
In addition, a minor fix has been made to the underlying
surfaceFieldValue function object so that it does not need a zone/set
name when values on a searchable surface are requested.
This is particularly useful for multiphase simulations for which integrating the
density weighted phase properties also requires the phase fraction to be
including in the weighting.
A single weight field can be specified as before:
weightField rho;
or a list specified by:
weightFields (alpha.water rho.water);
e.g. in tutorials/incompressible/pisoFoam/LES/motorBike/motorBike/system/cuttingPlane
surfaceFormat vtk;
writeFormat binary;
fields (p U);
selects writing the VTK surface files in binary format which significantly
speeds-up reading of the files in paraview.
Currently binary writing is supported in VTK and EnSight formats.
Replaced all uses of complex Xfer class with C++11 "move" constructors and
assignment operators. Removed the now redundant Xfer class.
This substantial changes improves consistency between OpenFOAM and the C++11 STL
containers and algorithms, reduces memory allocation and copy overhead when
returning containers from functions and simplifies maintenance of the core
libraries significantly.
In early versions of OpenFOAM the scalar limits were simple macro replacements and the
names were capitalized to indicate this. The scalar limits are now static
constants which is a huge improvement on the use of macros and for consistency
the names have been changed to camel-case to indicate this and improve
readability of the code:
GREAT -> great
ROOTGREAT -> rootGreat
VGREAT -> vGreat
ROOTVGREAT -> rootVGreat
SMALL -> small
ROOTSMALL -> rootSmall
VSMALL -> vSmall
ROOTVSMALL -> rootVSmall
The original capitalized are still currently supported but their use is
deprecated.
"pos" now returns 1 if the argument is greater than 0, otherwise it returns 0.
This is consistent with the common mathematical definition of the "pos" function:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sign_(mathematics)
However the previous implementation in which 1 was also returned for a 0
argument is useful in many situations so the "pos0" has been added which returns
1 if the argument is greater or equal to 0. Additionally the "neg0" has been
added which returns 1 if if the argument is less than or equal to 0.
Now the functionality to write single graph files or log files (vs time)
may be used in the creation of any form of functionObject, not just
those relating to a mesh region.
Replaced the 'postProcess' argument to the 'write' and 'execute'
functions with the single static member 'postProcess' in the
functionObject base-class.
The use of the term 'source' in the context of post-processing is
confusing and does not properly describe the process of region
selection. The new names 'surfaceRegion' and 'volRegion' better
describe the purpose of the functionObjects which is to provide field
processing functionality limited to a specified region of space, either
a surface or volume.
The keyword 'source' is renamed 'regionType' which better describes the
purpose which is to specify the method by which the surface or volume
region is selected.
The keyword to select the name of the surface or volume region is
renamed from 'sourceName' to 'name' consistent with the other
name-changes above.
with the more general and flexible 'postProcess' utility and '-postProcess' solver option
Rationale
---------
Both the 'postProcess' utility and '-postProcess' solver option use the
same extensive set of functionObjects available for data-processing
during the run avoiding the substantial code duplication necessary for
the 'foamCalc' and 'postCalc' utilities and simplifying maintenance.
Additionally consistency is guaranteed between solver data processing
and post-processing.
The functionObjects have been substantially re-written and generalized
to simplify development and encourage contribution.
Configuration
-------------
An extensive set of simple functionObject configuration files are
provided in
OpenFOAM-dev/etc/caseDicts/postProcessing
and more will be added in the future. These can either be copied into
'<case>/system' directory and included into the 'controlDict.functions'
sub-dictionary or included directly from 'etc/caseDicts/postProcessing'
using the '#includeEtc' directive or the new and more convenient
'#includeFunc' directive which searches the
'<etc>/caseDicts/postProcessing' directories for the selected
functionObject, e.g.
functions
{
#includeFunc Q
#includeFunc Lambda2
}
'#includeFunc' first searches the '<case>/system' directory in case
there is a local configuration.
Description of #includeFunc
---------------------------
Specify a functionObject dictionary file to include, expects the
functionObject name to follow (without quotes).
Search for functionObject dictionary file in
user/group/shipped directories.
The search scheme allows for version-specific and
version-independent files using the following hierarchy:
- \b user settings:
- ~/.OpenFOAM/\<VERSION\>/caseDicts/postProcessing
- ~/.OpenFOAM/caseDicts/postProcessing
- \b group (site) settings (when $WM_PROJECT_SITE is set):
- $WM_PROJECT_SITE/\<VERSION\>/caseDicts/postProcessing
- $WM_PROJECT_SITE/caseDicts/postProcessing
- \b group (site) settings (when $WM_PROJECT_SITE is not set):
- $WM_PROJECT_INST_DIR/site/\<VERSION\>/caseDicts/postProcessing
- $WM_PROJECT_INST_DIR/site/caseDicts/postProcessing
- \b other (shipped) settings:
- $WM_PROJECT_DIR/etc/caseDicts/postProcessing
An example of the \c \#includeFunc directive:
\verbatim
#includeFunc <funcName>
\endverbatim
postProcess
-----------
The 'postProcess' utility and '-postProcess' solver option provide the
same set of controls to execute functionObjects after the run either by
reading a specified set of fields to process in the case of
'postProcess' or by reading all fields and models required to start the
run in the case of '-postProcess' for each selected time:
postProcess -help
Usage: postProcess [OPTIONS]
options:
-case <dir> specify alternate case directory, default is the cwd
-constant include the 'constant/' dir in the times list
-dict <file> read control dictionary from specified location
-field <name> specify the name of the field to be processed, e.g. U
-fields <list> specify a list of fields to be processed, e.g. '(U T p)' -
regular expressions not currently supported
-func <name> specify the name of the functionObject to execute, e.g. Q
-funcs <list> specify the names of the functionObjects to execute, e.g.
'(Q div(U))'
-latestTime select the latest time
-newTimes select the new times
-noFunctionObjects
do not execute functionObjects
-noZero exclude the '0/' dir from the times list, has precedence
over the -withZero option
-parallel run in parallel
-region <name> specify alternative mesh region
-roots <(dir1 .. dirN)>
slave root directories for distributed running
-time <ranges> comma-separated time ranges - eg, ':10,20,40:70,1000:'
-srcDoc display source code in browser
-doc display application documentation in browser
-help print the usage
pimpleFoam -postProcess -help
Usage: pimpleFoam [OPTIONS]
options:
-case <dir> specify alternate case directory, default is the cwd
-constant include the 'constant/' dir in the times list
-dict <file> read control dictionary from specified location
-field <name> specify the name of the field to be processed, e.g. U
-fields <list> specify a list of fields to be processed, e.g. '(U T p)' -
regular expressions not currently supported
-func <name> specify the name of the functionObject to execute, e.g. Q
-funcs <list> specify the names of the functionObjects to execute, e.g.
'(Q div(U))'
-latestTime select the latest time
-newTimes select the new times
-noFunctionObjects
do not execute functionObjects
-noZero exclude the '0/' dir from the times list, has precedence
over the -withZero option
-parallel run in parallel
-postProcess Execute functionObjects only
-region <name> specify alternative mesh region
-roots <(dir1 .. dirN)>
slave root directories for distributed running
-time <ranges> comma-separated time ranges - eg, ':10,20,40:70,1000:'
-srcDoc display source code in browser
-doc display application documentation in browser
-help print the usage
The functionObjects to execute may be specified on the command-line
using the '-func' option for a single functionObject or '-funcs' for a
list, e.g.
postProcess -func Q
postProcess -funcs '(div(U) div(phi))'
In the case of 'Q' the default field to process is 'U' which is
specified in and read from the configuration file but this may be
overridden thus:
postProcess -func 'Q(Ua)'
as is done in the example above to calculate the two forms of the divergence of
the velocity field. Additional fields which the functionObjects may depend on
can be specified using the '-field' or '-fields' options.
The 'postProcess' utility can only be used to execute functionObjects which
process fields present in the time directories. However, functionObjects which
depend on fields obtained from models, e.g. properties derived from turbulence
models can be executed using the '-postProcess' of the appropriate solver, e.g.
pisoFoam -postProcess -func PecletNo
or
sonicFoam -postProcess -func MachNo
In this case all required fields will have already been read so the '-field' or
'-fields' options are not be needed.
Henry G. Weller
CFD Direct Ltd.
