It is better to not select and instantiate a model, fvOption etc. than to create
it and set it inactive as the creation process requires reading of settings,
parameters, fields etc. with all the associated specification and storage
without being used. Also the incomplete implementation added a lot of
complexity in the low-level operation of models introducing a significant
maintenance overhead and development overhead for new models.
The standard set of Lagrangian clouds are now selectable at run-time.
This means that a solver that supports Lagrangian modelling can now use
any type of cloud (with some restrictions). Previously, solvers were
hard-coded to use specific cloud modelling. In addition, a cloud-list
structure has been added so that solvers may select multiple clouds,
rather than just one.
The new system is controlled as follows:
- If only a single cloud is required, then the settings for the
Lagrangian modelling should be placed in a constant/cloudProperties
file.
- If multiple clouds are required, then a constant/clouds file should be
created containing a list of cloud names defined by the user. Each
named cloud then reads settings from a corresponding
constant/<cloudName>Properties file. Clouds are evolved sequentially
in the order in which they are listed in the constant/clouds file.
- If no clouds are required, then the constant/cloudProperties file and
constant/clouds file should be omitted.
The constant/cloudProperties or constant/<cloudName>Properties files are
the same as previous cloud properties files; e.g.,
constant/kinematicCloudProperties or constant/reactingCloud1Properties,
except that they now also require an additional top-level "type" entry
to select which type of cloud is to be used. The available options for
this entry are:
type cloud; // A basic cloud of solid
// particles. Includes forces,
// patch interaction, injection,
// dispersion and stochastic
// collisions. Same as the cloud
// previously used by
// rhoParticleFoam
// (uncoupledKinematicParticleFoam)
type collidingCloud; // As "cloud" but with resolved
// collision modelling. Same as the
// cloud previously used by DPMFoam
// and particleFoam
// (icoUncoupledKinematicParticleFoam)
type MPPICCloud; // As "cloud" but with MPPIC
// collision modelling. Same as the
// cloud previously used by
// MPPICFoam.
type thermoCloud; // As "cloud" but with
// thermodynamic modelling and heat
// transfer with the carrier phase.
// Same as the limestone cloud
// previously used by
// coalChemistryFoam.
type reactingCloud; // As "thermoCloud" but with phase
// change and mass transfer
// coupling with the carrier
// phase. Same as the cloud
// previously used in fireFoam.
type reactingMultiphaseCloud; // As "reactingCloud" but with
// particles that contain multiple
// phases. Same as the clouds
// previously used in
// reactingParcelFoam and
// simpleReactingParcelFoam and the
// coal cloud used in
// coalChemistryFoam.
type sprayCloud; // As "reactingCloud" but with
// additional spray-specific
// collision and breakup modelling.
// Same as the cloud previously
// used in sprayFoam and
// engineFoam.
The first three clouds are not thermally coupled, so are available in
all Lagrangian solvers. The last four are thermally coupled and require
access to the carrier thermodynamic model, so are only available in
compressible Lagrangian solvers.
This change has reduced the number of solvers necessary to provide the
same functionality; solvers that previously differed only in their
Lagrangian modelling can now be combined. The Lagrangian solvers have
therefore been consolidated with consistent naming as follows.
denseParticleFoam: Replaces DPMFoam and MPPICFoam
reactingParticleFoam: Replaces sprayFoam and coalChemistryFoam
simpleReactingParticleFoam: Replaces simpleReactingParcelFoam
buoyantReactingParticleFoam: Replaces reactingParcelFoam
fireFoam and engineFoam remain, although fireFoam is likely to be merged
into buoyantReactingParticleFoam in the future once the additional
functionality it provides is generalised.
Some additional minor functionality has also been added to certain
solvers:
- denseParticleFoam has a "cloudForceSplit" control which can be set in
system/fvOptions.PIMPLE. This provides three methods for handling the
cloud momentum coupling, each of which have different trade-off-s
regarding numerical artefacts in the velocity field. See
denseParticleFoam.C for more information, and also bug report #3385.
- reactingParticleFoam and buoyantReactingParticleFoam now support
moving mesh in order to permit sharing parts of their implementation
with engineFoam.
Following the generalisation of the TurbulenceModels library to support
non-Newtonian laminar flow including visco-elasticity and extensible to other
form of non-Newtonian behaviour the name TurbulenceModels is misleading and does
not properly represent how general the OpenFOAM solvers now are. The
TurbulenceModels now provides an interface to momentum transport modelling in
general and the plan is to rename it MomentumTransportModels and in preparation
for this the turbulenceProperties dictionary has been renamed momentumTransport
to properly reflect its new more general purpose.
The old turbulenceProperties name is supported for backward-compatibility.
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.
