With the selection of the Boussinesq equation of state the general buoyancy
solvers buoyantSimpleFoam and buoyantPimpleFoam can be used instead of the
specialised Boussinesq solvers avoiding the need for special implementation of
thermal and pressure boundary conditions and providing support for radiation and
fvOptions which would not have been feasible or practical in the Boussinesq
solvers.
Other incompressible equations of state are also supported; for most gaseous
problems the incompressiblePerfectGas equation of state is likely to be more
accurate than the Boussinesq equation of state.
The buoyantBoussinesq[SP]impleFoam tutorials have been updated and moved to the
corresponding buoyant[SP]impleFoam directories.
The sub-loops of the solution control are now named more consistently,
with ambiguously named methods such as finalIter replaced with ones
like finalPimpleIter, so that it is clear which loop they represent.
In addition, the final logic has been improved so that it restores state
after a sub-iteration, and so that sub-iterations can be used on their
own without an outer iteration in effect. Previously, if the
non-orthogonal loop were used outside of a pimple/piso iteration, the
final iteration would not execute with final settings.
The radiation modelling library has been moved out of
thermophysicalProperties into the top-level source directory. Radiation
is a process, not a property, and belongs alongside turbulence,
combustion, etc...
The namespaces used within the radiation library have been made
consistent with the rest of the code. Selectable sub-models are in
namespaces named after their base classes. Some models have been
renamed remove the base type from the suffix, as this is unnecessary.
These renames are:
Old name: New name:
binaryAbsorptionEmission binary
cloudAbsorptionEmission cloud
constantAbsorptionEmission constant
greyMeanAbsorptionEmission greyMean/greyMeanCombustion
greyMeanSolidAbsorptionEmission greyMeanSolid
wideBandAbsorptionEmission wideBand/wideBandCombustion
cloudScatter cloud
constantScatter constant
mixtureFractionSoot mixtureFraction
Some absorption-emission models have been split into versions which do
and don't use the heat release rate. The version that does has been
given the post-fix "Combustion" and has been moved into the
combustionModels library. This removes the dependence on a registered
Qdot field, and makes the models compatible with the recent removal of
that field from the combustion solvers.
Registration occurs when the temporary field is transferred to a non-temporary
field via a constructor or if explicitly transferred to the database via the
regIOobject "store" methods.
The selection of the "Final" solver settings is now handled automatically within
the "<equation>.solve()" call and there is no longer any need no provide a bool
argument for specific cases. This simplifies the solution algorithm loop
structures and ensures consistency in behaviour across all solvers.
All tutorials have been updated to correspond to the now consistent rules.
Now for transient simulations "Final" solver settings are required for ALL
equations providing consistency between the solution of velocity, energy,
composition and radiation properties.
However "Final" relaxation factors are no longer required for fields or
equations and if not present the standard value for the variable will be
applied. Given that relaxation factors other than 1 are rarely required for
transient runs and hence the same for all iterations including the final one
this approach provide simpler input while still providing the flexibility to
specify a different value for the final iteration if required. For steady cases
it is usual to execute just 1 outer iteration per time-step for which the
standard relaxation factors are appropriate, and if more than one iteration is
executed it is common to use the same factors for both. In the unlikely event
of requiring different relaxation factors for the final iteration this is still
possible to specify via the now optional "Final" specification.
Qdot is only relevant for reacting cases, and even then it is only
written out for post-processing purposes. It has been removed from
chtMultiRegionFoam as this solvers' typical usage is for non-reacting
simulations.
If it is desired to obtain Qdot from a chtMultiRegionFoam simulation,
then a better way would be to implement a function object to look up the
reaction model and write it out.
To switch-off radiation set
radiationModel none;
in radiationProperties which instantiates "null" model that does not read any
data or coefficients or evaluate any fields.
The reference height is now defined in the direction of -g, whether as
previously it was defined in the direction cmptMag(g). This change makes
the behaviour consistent when the case is transformed. For a "typical"
case with g along one of the negative axes, this should make no
difference. None of the tutorials are affected.
Resolves bug report https://bugs.openfoam.org/view.php?id=2980
Multi-region PIMPLE controls have been applied to the chtMultiRegionFoam
solver, and a transonic option has been implemented.
The new PIMPLE controls let the solver operate SIMPLE mode. The
utilisation of library solution and convergence control functionality
has significantly reduced the amount of code in the solver. The
chtMultiRegionSimpleFoam solver has also been made obsolete, and has
therefore been removed.
A few changes will be necessary to convert an existing
chtMultiRegionSimpleFoam case to chtMultiRegionFoam. All the SIMPLE
sub-dictionaries in the system/<regions>/fvSolution will need to be
renamed PIMPLE. The system/fvSolution file will also need an empty
PIMPLE sub-dictionary. In addition, additional "<variable>Final" solver
and relaxation entries will be needed. For a steady case, adding a
wildcard ending, ".*", to the variable names should be sufficient.
Solution parameters appropriate for a steady case are shown below:
solvers
{
"p_rgh.*"
{
solver GAMG;
tolerance 1e-7;
relTol 0.01;
smoother DIC;
maxIter 10;
}
"(U|h|e|k|epsilon).*"
{
solver PBiCGStab;
preconditioner DILU;
tolerance 1e-7;
relTol 0.1;
}
}
PIMPLE
{
// ...
}
relaxationFactors
{
fields
{
"p_rgh.*" 0.7;
}
equations
{
"U.*" 0.5;
"(h|e).*" 0.3;
"(k|epsilon).*" 0.2;
}
}
This work was supported by Fabian Buelow, at Evonik
Tobias Holzmann provided cases for testing the convergence controls
The solution controls have been rewritten for use in multi-region
solvers, and PIMPLE fluid/solid solution controls have been implemented
within this framework.
PIMPLE also now has time-loop convergence control which can be used to
end the simulation once a certain initial residual is reached. This
allows a PIMPLE solver to run with equivalent convergence control to a
SIMPLE solver. Corrector loop convergence control is still available,
and can be used at the same time as the time-loop control.
The "residualControl" sub-dictionary of PIMPLE contains the residual
values required on the first solve of a time-step for the simulation to
end. This behaviour is the same as SIMPLE. The
"outerCorrectorResidualControl" sub-dictionary contains the tolerances
required for the corrector loop to exit. An example specification with
both types of control active is shown below.
PIMPLE
{
// ...
residualControl
{
p 1e-3;
U 1e-4;
"(k|epsilon|omega)" 1e-3;
}
outerCorrectorResidualControl
{
U
{
tolerance 1e-4;
relTol 0.1;
}
"(k|epsilon|omega)"
{
tolerance 1e-3;
relTol 0.1;
}
}
}
Note that existing PIMPLE "residualControl" entries will need to be
renamed "outerCorrectorResidualControl".
Application within a solver has also changed slightly. In order to have
convergence control for the time loop as a whole, the
solutionControl::loop(Time&) method (or the equivalent run method) must
be used; i.e.,
while (simple.loop(runTime))
{
Info<< "Time = " << runTime.timeName() << nl << endl;
// solve ...
}
or,
while (pimple.run(runTime))
{
// pre-time-increment operations ...
runTime ++;
Info<< "Time = " << runTime.timeName() << nl << endl;
// solve ...
}
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.
chtMultiRegionSimpleFoam needs to check whether or not the simulation is
at the end. To facilitate this, a Time::running method has been added.
The Time::run method was being used for this purpose, but this lead to
function objects being executed multiple times.
This resolves bug report https://bugs.openfoam.org/view.php?id=2804
This ensures that the fvOptions are constructed for the -postProcessing option
so that functionObjects which process fvOption data operate correctly in this
mode.
When an OpenFOAM simulation runs in parallel, the data for decomposed fields and
mesh(es) has historically been stored in multiple files within separate
directories for each processor. Processor directories are named 'processorN',
where N is the processor number.
This commit introduces an alternative "collated" file format where the data for
each decomposed field (and mesh) is collated into a single file, which is
written and read on the master processor. The files are stored in a single
directory named 'processors'.
The new format produces significantly fewer files - one per field, instead of N
per field. For large parallel cases, this avoids the restriction on the number
of open files imposed by the operating system limits.
The file writing can be threaded allowing the simulation to continue running
while the data is being written to file. NFS (Network File System) is not
needed when using the the collated format and additionally, there is an option
to run without NFS with the original uncollated approach, known as
"masterUncollated".
The controls for the file handling are in the OptimisationSwitches of
etc/controlDict:
OptimisationSwitches
{
...
//- Parallel IO file handler
// uncollated (default), collated or masterUncollated
fileHandler uncollated;
//- collated: thread buffer size for queued file writes.
// If set to 0 or not sufficient for the file size threading is not used.
// Default: 2e9
maxThreadFileBufferSize 2e9;
//- masterUncollated: non-blocking buffer size.
// If the file exceeds this buffer size scheduled transfer is used.
// Default: 2e9
maxMasterFileBufferSize 2e9;
}
When using the collated file handling, memory is allocated for the data in the
thread. maxThreadFileBufferSize sets the maximum size of memory in bytes that
is allocated. If the data exceeds this size, the write does not use threading.
When using the masterUncollated file handling, non-blocking MPI communication
requires a sufficiently large memory buffer on the master node.
maxMasterFileBufferSize sets the maximum size in bytes of the buffer. If the
data exceeds this size, the system uses scheduled communication.
The installation defaults for the fileHandler choice, maxThreadFileBufferSize
and maxMasterFileBufferSize (set in etc/controlDict) can be over-ridden within
the case controlDict file, like other parameters. Additionally the fileHandler
can be set by:
- the "-fileHandler" command line argument;
- a FOAM_FILEHANDLER environment variable.
A foamFormatConvert utility allows users to convert files between the collated
and uncollated formats, e.g.
mpirun -np 2 foamFormatConvert -parallel -fileHandler uncollated
An example case demonstrating the file handling methods is provided in:
$FOAM_TUTORIALS/IO/fileHandling
The work was undertaken by Mattijs Janssens, in collaboration with Henry Weller.
See tutorials/compressible/rhoPimpleFoam/RAS/squareBendLiq for exapmle
pimpleControl: Added SIMPLErho option for running in SIMPLE mode
with large time-step/Courant number and relaxation. With this option the
density is updated from thermodynamics rather than continuity after the pressure
equation which is better behaved if pressure is relaxed and/or solved to a
loose relative tolerance. The need for this option is demonstrated in the
tutorials/compressible/rhoPimpleFoam/RAS/angledDuct tutorial which is unstable
without the option.
