Warnings about initialisation of particles with locations outside of the
mesh and about the positional inaccuracy of NCC transfers are now
accumulated and printed once per time-step. This way, the log isn't
obscured by hundreds of such warnings.
Also, the pattern in which warnings are silenced after some arbitrary
number (typically 100) have been issued has been removed. This pattern
means that user viewing the log later in the run may be unaware that a
problem is still present. Accumulated warnings are concise enough that
they do not need to be silenced. They are generated every time-step, and
so remain visible throughout the log.
Support for mesh sub-cycling has been removed from Lagrangian. Various
Lagrangian processes already support sub-dividing the time-step. It is
easier and more efficient to extend that support all the way to the
high-level cloud objects, rather than to sub-cycle the mesh.
This has additional benefits. The cloud now no longer needs to reset the
step fraction at the start of every sub-motion. Injection can take
advantage of this by modifying particles' step fractions in order to
distribute them uniformly through the time-step. This is a simple and
efficient method. Previously, injection would track the particles some
distance after injection. This was more expensive to do, it resulted in
spatial artefacts in the injected Lagrangian field, and it did not
correctly handle interactions with patches or parallel transfers.
The lack of injection tracking also means that particles injected
through patches now start their simulation topologically connected to
the face on which they are created. This means that they correctly
trigger cloud functions associated with that face and/or patch.
The injection models now also return barycentric coordinates directly,
rather than the global position of injected particles. For methods that
initially generate locations naturally in terms of barycentric
coordinates, this prevents unnecessary and potentially fragile
conversion from barycentric to Cartesian and back again. These are
typically the methods that "fill" some sort of space; e.g., patch or
cell-zone injections.
Three functions for generating fluxes of the Lagrangian parcels have
been added. These are 'numberFlux', 'volumeFlux' and 'massFlux'. They
require only the type specifying; no further controls are needed. If it
is desired only to generate and register the field, and not write it,
then a 'write no;' setting can be applied.
For example, in constant/cloudProperties:
cloudFunctions
{
massFlux1
{
type massFlux; // numberFlux, volumeFlux, or massFlux
write no;
}
}
The 'postFace' hook is now called at the start of a tracking step, if
the particle is on a face. Execution is therefore reliably *after* an
interaction with a face. There is a new 'preFace' hook which is called
at the end of tracking; i.e., *before* an interaction with a face. The
'postPatch' hook is unchanged, but it is triggered more carefully so
that it does actually execute *after* the patch interaction.
This fixes a number of issues associated with interaction with
constraint and coupled patches. It also allows for functions to be
defined that have dependence on the direction (relative to the face
normal) in which a particle-face interaction takes place.
This reference represents unnecessary storage. The mesh can be obtained
from tracking data or passed to the particle evolution functions by
argument.
In addition, removing the mesh reference makes it possible to construct
as particle from an Istream without the need for an iNew class. This
simplifies stream-based transfer, and makes it possible for particles to
be communicated by a polyDistributionMap.
The functionality provided by 'cyclicACMI' and 'cyclicRepeatAMI' has
been entirely superseded by non-conformal coupled (NCC). All references
to 'cyclicACMI' and 'cyclicRepeatAMI' have therefore been removed.
See previous commits 569fa31d and 420866cf for more explanation,
instructions on updating, and relevant tutorial cases.
This major development provides coupling of patches which are
non-conformal, i.e. where the faces of one patch do not match the faces
of the other. The coupling is fully conservative and second order
accurate in space, unlike the Arbitrary Mesh Interface (AMI) and
associated ACMI and Repeat AMI methods which NCC replaces.
Description:
A non-conformal couple is a connection between a pair of boundary
patches formed by projecting one patch onto the other in a way that
fills the space between them. The intersection between the projected
surface and patch forms new faces that are incorporated into the finite
volume mesh. These new faces are created identically on both sides of
the couple, and therefore become equivalent to internal faces within the
mesh. The affected cells remain closed, meaning that the area vectors
sum to zero for all the faces of each cell. Consequently, the main
benefits of the finite volume method, i.e. conservation and accuracy,
are not undermined by the coupling.
A couple connects parts of mesh that are otherwise disconnected and can
be used in the following ways:
+ to simulate rotating geometries, e.g. a propeller or stirrer, in which
a part of the mesh rotates with the geometry and connects to a
surrounding mesh which is not moving;
+ to connect meshes that are generated separately, which do not conform
at their boundaries;
+ to connect patches which only partially overlap, in which the
non-overlapped section forms another boundary, e.g. a wall;
+ to simulate a case with a geometry which is periodically repeating by
creating multiple couples with different transformations between
patches.
The capability for simulating partial overlaps replaces the ACMI
functionality, currently provided by the 'cyclicACMI' patch type, and
which is unreliable unless the couple is perfectly flat. The capability
for simulating periodically repeating geometry replaces the Repeat AMI
functionality currently provided by the 'cyclicRepeatAMI' patch type.
Usage:
The process of meshing for NCC is very similar to existing processes for
meshing for AMI. Typically, a mesh is generated with an identifiable set
of internal faces which coincide with the surface through which the mesh
will be coupled. These faces are then duplicated by running the
'createBaffles' utility to create two boundary patches. The points are
then split using 'splitBaffles' in order to permit independent motion of
the patches.
In AMI, these patches are assigned the 'cyclicAMI' patch type, which
couples them using AMI interpolation methods.
With NCC, the patches remain non-coupled, e.g. a 'wall' type. Coupling
is instead achieved by running the new 'createNonConformalCouples'
utility, which creates additional coupled patches of type
'nonConformalCyclic'. These appear in the 'constant/polyMesh/boundary'
file with zero faces; they are populated with faces in the finite volume
mesh during the connection process in NCC.
For a single couple, such as that which separates the rotating and
stationary sections of a mesh, the utility can be called using the
non-coupled patch names as arguments, e.g.
createNonConformalCouples -overwrite rotatingZoneInner rotatingZoneOuter
where 'rotatingZoneInner' and 'rotatingZoneOuter' are the names of the
patches.
For multiple couples, and/or couples with transformations,
'createNonConformalCouples' should be run without arguments. Settings
will then be read from a configuration file named
'system/createNonConformalCouplesDict'. See
'$FOAM_ETC/caseDicts/annotated/createNonConformalCouplesDict' for
examples.
Boundary conditions must be specified for the non-coupled patches. For a
couple where the patches fully overlap, boundary conditions
corresponding to a slip wall are typically applied to fields, i.e
'movingWallSlipVelocity' (or 'slip' if the mesh is stationary) for
velocity U, 'zeroGradient' or 'fixedFluxPressure' for pressure p, and
'zeroGradient' for other fields. For a couple with
partially-overlapping patches, boundary conditions are applied which
physically represent the non-overlapped region, e.g. a no-slip wall.
Boundary conditions also need to be specified for the
'nonConformalCyclic' patches created by 'createNonConformalCouples'. It
is generally recommended that this is done by including the
'$FOAM_ETC/caseDicts/setConstraintTypes' file in the 'boundaryField'
section of each of the field files, e.g.
boundaryField
{
#includeEtc "caseDicts/setConstraintTypes"
inlet
{
...
}
...
}
For moving mesh cases, it may be necessary to correct the mesh fluxes
that are changed as a result of the connection procedure. If the
connected patches do not conform perfectly to the mesh motion, then
failure to correct the fluxes can result in noise in the pressure
solution.
Correction for the mesh fluxes is enabled by the 'correctMeshPhi' switch
in the 'PIMPLE' (or equivalent) section of 'system/fvSolution'. When it
is enabled, solver settings are required for 'MeshPhi'. The solution
just needs to distribute the error enough to dissipate the noise. A
smooth solver with a loose tolerance is typically sufficient, e.g. the
settings in 'system/fvSolution' shown below:
solvers
{
MeshPhi
{
solver smoothSolver;
smoother symGaussSeidel;
tolerance 1e-2;
relTol 0;
}
...
}
PIMPLE
{
correctMeshPhi yes;
...
}
The solution of 'MeshPhi' is an inexpensive computation since it is
applied only to a small subset of the mesh adjacent to the
couple. Conservation is maintained whether or not the mesh flux
correction is enabled, and regardless of the solution tolerance for
'MeshPhi'.
Advantages of NCC:
+ NCC maintains conservation which is required for many numerical
schemes and algorithms to operate effectively, in particular those
designed to maintain boundedness of a solution.
+ Closed-volume systems no longer suffer from accumulation or loss of
mass, poor convergence of the pressure equation, and/or concentration
of error in the reference cell.
+ Partially overlapped simulations are now possible on surfaces that are
not perfectly flat. The projection fills space so no overlaps or
spaces are generated inside contiguously overlapping sections, even if
those sections have sharp angles.
+ The finite volume faces created by NCC have geometrically accurate
centres. This makes the method second order accurate in space.
+ The polyhedral mesh no longer requires duplicate boundary faces to be
generated in order to run a partially overlapped simulation.
+ Lagrangian elements can now transfer across non-conformal couplings in
parallel.
+ Once the intersection has been computed and applied to the finite
volume mesh, it can use standard cyclic or processor cyclic finite
volume boundary conditions, with no need for additional patch types or
matrix interfaces.
+ Parallel communication is done using the standard
processor-patch-field system. This is more efficient than alternative
systems since it has been carefully optimised for use within the
linear solvers.
+ Coupled patches are disconnected prior to mesh motion and topology
change and reconnected afterwards. This simplifies the boundary
condition specification for mesh motion fields.
Resolved Bug Reports:
+ https://bugs.openfoam.org/view.php?id=663
+ https://bugs.openfoam.org/view.php?id=883
+ https://bugs.openfoam.org/view.php?id=887
+ https://bugs.openfoam.org/view.php?id=1337
+ https://bugs.openfoam.org/view.php?id=1388
+ https://bugs.openfoam.org/view.php?id=1422
+ https://bugs.openfoam.org/view.php?id=1829
+ https://bugs.openfoam.org/view.php?id=1841
+ https://bugs.openfoam.org/view.php?id=2274
+ https://bugs.openfoam.org/view.php?id=2561
+ https://bugs.openfoam.org/view.php?id=3817
Deprecation:
NCC replaces the functionality provided by AMI, ACMI and Repeat AMI.
ACMI and Repeat AMI are insufficiently reliable to warrant further
maintenance so are removed in an accompanying commit to OpenFOAM-dev.
AMI is more widely used so will be retained alongside NCC for the next
version release of OpenFOAM and then subsequently removed from
OpenFOAM-dev.
By default a streamline now stops at the cyclic and starts again at the
coupled location on the opposite cyclic.
There is also now an "outside" option that can be passed to the
streamlines function. This changes the default behaviour so that the
streamline continues outside of the mesh when it encounters a cyclic
patch. The following postProcess command uses the "outside" option in
this way:
postProcess -latestTime -func "
streamlinesPatch
(
patch=inlet,
nPoints=50,
outside=true,
fields=(p U)
)"
used to check the existence of and open an object file, read and check the
header without constructing the object.
'typeIOobject' operates in an equivalent and consistent manner to 'regIOobject'
but the type information is provided by the template argument rather than via
virtual functions for which the derived object would need to be constructed,
which is the case for 'regIOobject'.
'typeIOobject' replaces the previous separate functions 'typeHeaderOk' and
'typeFilePath' with a single consistent interface.
Transformer now supports scaling matrices. The number of ways in which
transformer can be constructed has also been reduced to null (i.e.,
identity), pure translation, pure scaling and pure rotation. Compound
translations must be constructed by combining transformers with the
dot-product (&) operator. In this way, the details of in what order the
different parts of the transformation are applied have been abstracted.
A single transformer object is now maintained within cyclic patches and returned
from a single virtual functions massively simplifying the interface and allowing
for further rationalisation of the calculation of the transformation.
The implementation of the optional non-uniform transformations in coupled
patches was based on transform property lists which could be either length 0 for
no transformation, 1 for uniform transformation or n-faces for non-uniform
transformation. This complexity was maintenance nightmare but kept to support
the hack in the original film implementation to partially work around the
conservation error. Now that film has been re-implemented in fully mass
conservative form this unphysical non-uniform transformation support is no
longer needed and the coupled patch transformations have been completely
refactored to be simpler and more rational with single values for the
transformation properties and boolians to indicate which transformations are
needed.
The optimisation work done as commit 81947c80 introduced a failure mode
where an ACMI interaction could repeat indefinitely. This has now been
corrected.
Resolves bug report https://bugs.openfoam.org/view.php?id=3166
The projection direction has been corrected to include the effect of
mesh motion. The case where the source and receiving faces are of
differing orientations and the particle displacement points into both is
now detected and handled.
A new constraint patch has been added which permits AMI coupling in
cyclic geometries. The coupling is repeated with different multiples of
the cyclic transformation in order to achieve a full correspondence.
This allows, for example, a cylindrical AMI interface to be used in a
sector of a rotational geometry.
The patch is used in a similar manner to cyclicAMI, except that it has
an additional entry, "transformPatch". This entry must name a coupled
patch. The transformation used to repeat the AMI coupling is taken from
this patch. For example, in system/blockMeshDict:
boundary
(
cyclic1
{
type cyclic;
neighbourPatch cyclic2;
faces ( ... );
}
cyclic2
{
type cyclic;
neighbourPatch cyclic1;
faces ( ... );
}
cyclicRepeatAMI1
{
type cyclicRepeatAMI;
neighbourPatch cyclicRepeatAM2;
transformPatch cyclic1;
faces ( ... );
}
cyclicRepeatAMI2
{
type cyclicRepeatAMI;
neighbourPatch cyclicRepeatAMI1;
transformPatch cyclic1;
faces ( ... );
}
// other patches ...
);
In this example, the transformation between cyclic1 and cyclic2 is used
to define the repetition used by the two cyclicRepeatAMI patches.
Whether cyclic1 or cyclic2 is listed as the transform patch is not
important.
A tutorial, incompressible/pimpleFoam/RAS/impeller, has been added to
demonstrate the functionality. This contains two repeating AMI pairs;
one cylindrical and one planar.
A significant amount of maintenance has been carried out on the AMI and
ACMI patches as part of this work. The AMI methods now return
dimensionless weights by default, which prevents ambiguity over the
units of the weight field during construction. Large amounts of
duplicate code have also been removed by deriving ACMI classes from
their AMI equivalents. The reporting and writing of AMI weights has also
been unified.
This work was supported by Dr Victoria Suponitsky, at General Fusion
For compatibility with all the mesh and related classes in OpenFOAM The 'normal'
function of the 'triangle', 'triFace' and 'face' classes now returns the unit
normal vector rather than the vector area which is now provided by the 'area'
function.
A lot of methods were taking argument data which could be referenced or
generated from the parcel class at little or no additional cost. This
was confusing and generated the possibility of inconsistent data states.
Tracking data classes are no longer templated on the derived cloud type.
The advantage of this is that they can now be passed to sub models. This
should allow continuous phase data to be removed from the parcel
classes. The disadvantage is that every function which once took a
templated TrackData argument now needs an additional TrackCloudType
argument in order to perform the necessary down-casting.
Particle collisions with ACMI patches are now handled. The hit detects
whether the location is within the overlap or the coupled region and
recurses, calling the hit routine appropriate for the region.
The low level tracking methods are now more consistently named. There is
now a distinction between tracking to a face and hitting it. Function
object side effects have been moved out of the base layer and into the
parcels on which they are meaningful.
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.
terms of the local barycentric coordinates of the current tetrahedron,
rather than the global coordinate system.
Barycentric tracking works on any mesh, irrespective of mesh quality.
Particles do not get "lost", and tracking does not require ad-hoc
"corrections" or "rescues" to function robustly, because the calculation
of particle-face intersections is unambiguous and reproducible, even at
small angles of incidence.
Each particle position is defined by topology (i.e. the decomposed tet
cell it is in) and geometry (i.e. where it is in the cell). No search
operations are needed on restart or reconstruct, unlike when particle
positions are stored in the global coordinate system.
The particle positions file now contains particles' local coordinates
and topology, rather than the global coordinates and cell. This change
to the output format is not backwards compatible. Existing cases with
Lagrangian data will not restart, but they will still run from time
zero without any modification. This change was necessary in order to
guarantee that the loaded particle is valid, and therefore
fundamentally prevent "loss" and "search-failure" type bugs (e.g.,
2517, 2442, 2286, 1836, 1461, 1341, 1097).
The tracking functions have also been converted to function in terms
of displacement, rather than end position. This helps remove floating
point error issues, particularly towards the end of a tracking step.
Wall bounded streamlines have been removed. The implementation proved
incompatible with the new tracking algorithm. ParaView has a surface
LIC plugin which provides equivalent, or better, functionality.
Additionally, bug report <https://bugs.openfoam.org/view.php?id=2517>
is resolved by this change.
