OpenFOAM (Installation)

OpenFOAM (Installation)#

This tutorial guides through the installation of OpenFOAM on Ubuntu Linux and Debian 10. For installing OpenFOAM on many other platforms (even Windows) visit the developer’s website.

Learn OpenFOAM

OpenFOAM represents a powerful modeling tool, which is recommended here for modeling flow-structure interaction. OpenFOAM developers provide detailed documentation with high-quality tutorials on their website. Especially, their 3-week tutorial is a very good start into OpenFOAM modeling for PhD students or engineers.

Max out computation power

On Debian Linux / Ubuntu / Mint, preferably install OpenFOAM from the Ubuntu repository rather than installing OpenFOAM in a Docker container. The reason for this is that a Docker container is a virtual environment, which does not enable OpenFOAM to directly access the full physical capacity of your computer.

Ubuntu (incl. Mint and Lubuntu)#

The installation on Ubuntu Linux or one of its derivatives is probably one of the easiest and most sustainable ways for working with OpenFOAM.

Install OpenFOAM#

The installation on any Ubuntu Linux platform is straight-forward and can be carried out as described on the developer’s website. In detail, these steps include:

  1. Download and add the gpg key
    sudo sh -c "wget -O - https://dl.openfoam.org/gpg.key | apt-key add -"

  2. Add the repository to sources.list
    sudo add-apt-repository http://dl.openfoam.org/ubuntu

  3. Update the apt package list
    sudo apt update

  4. Install OpenFOAM along with a tailored version of ParaView:
    sudo apt -y install openfoam9

Optionally, install gedit, which is often used in the documentation and for instructions for setting environment variables:

sudo apt install gedit

Tip

Even though the developer’s installation instructions suggest using apt-get update / install, preferably use apt update / install.

Update OpenFOAM#

The OpenFOAM developers periodically update (recompile) new versions of openfoam9. To get these latest versions run:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install --only-upgrade openfoam9

Setup User Configuration#

OpenFOAM uses a set of environment variables that aid calling the program and its helpers. To define environment variables, every OpenFOAM - Ubuntu user needs to modify the .bashrc file, which lives in the /home/USER/ directory:

  • Open the user .bashrc file:
    gedit ~/.bashrc

  • On the bottom of the .bashrc file add:
    source /opt/openfoam9/etc/bashrc

  • Save and close the user .bashrc file.

Open a new Terminal (or, to be sure, re-login on Ubuntu) and test if the system recognizes the OpenFOAM environment variables:

simpleFoam -help

Usage simpleFoam [Options]
...

If correctly set up, Terminal returns a set of options for running OpenFOAM.

Test-run#

With the environment variables defined, create a new directory for OpenFOAM projects:

cd ~
mkdir OpenFoam9
cd OpenFoam9

Copy the pitzDaily OpenFOAM tutorial by using the $FOAM_[...] environment variables (full list):

mkdir -p $FOAM_RUN
cd $FOAM_RUN
cp -r $FOAM_TUTORIALS/incompressible/simpleFoam/pitzDaily .

Run the blockMesh (pre), the simpleFoam (main), and the paraFoam (post) processors:

cd pitzDaily
blockMesh
simpleFoam
paraFoam

To get started with OpenFOAM, refer to the User Guide provided by CFD Direct.

Debian 10#

Prerequisites#

Debian users will need to install curl and docker for being able to install OpenFOAM. First, make sure to get rid of any outdated version of docker (if this returns an error, that is not a problem):

sudo apt-get remove docker docker-engine docker.io containerd runc

Install docker dependencies:

sudo apt install apt-transport-https ca-certificates curl gnupg

Add docker’s GPG keys:

curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/debian/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/docker-archive-keyring.gpg

Add the stable docker repository:

echo "deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/docker-archive-keyring.gpg] https://download.docker.com/linux/debian \
  $(lsb_release -cs) stable" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null

Update apt and install docker:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io

Verify the successful installation of docker:

sudo docker run hello-world

Until here, docker is installed for sudoers only. To enable running docker and OpenFOAM for any user, the user’s USERNAME must be added to the system’s docker group. Therefore, add every docker and OpenFOAM user to the docker group (required for every USERNAME):

sudo usermod -aG docker USERNAME

With docker being installed, the system is ready for the installation of OpenFOAM on Debian.

On a remote desktop computer or a virtual machine, make sure to also install X11 and Xrdp, for example for an Xfce desktop:

sudo apt install xorg dbus-x11 x11-xserver-utils
sudo apt install xfce4 xfce4-goodies xrdp

Install OpenFOAM (v9)#

Download the latest OpenFOAM package for docker:

sudo sh -c "wget http://dl.openfoam.org/docker/openfoam9-linux -O /usr/bin/openfoam9-linux"

Make the downloaded openfoam9-linux script executable:

sudo chmod 755 /usr/bin/openfoam9-linux

Get Started (First-time Launch)#

Create a new directory (e.g., /home/OpenFoam9/) and launch the openfoam9-linux environment:

cd ~
mkdir OpenFoam9
cd OpenFoam9
openfoam9-linux

The docker environment should now be launched in Terminal. To test OpenFOAM, copy the pitzDaily OpenFOAM tutorial by using the FOAM environment variables:

mkdir -p $FOAM_RUN
cd $FOAM_RUN
cp -r $FOAM_TUTORIALS/incompressible/simpleFoam/pitzDaily .

Run the blockMesh (pre), the simpleFoam (main), and the paraFoam (post) processors:

cd pitzDaily
blockMesh
simpleFoam
paraFoam

To quit docker, tap exit. The installation procedure is described in detail on the developer’s website.

Usual Launch Procedure#

With docker and OpenFOAM being installed, every user of the docker group (see above instructions for adding users to the docker group) can launch OpenFOAM through Terminal by entering:

openfoam9-linux

To quit the program tap (in Terminal/docker):

exit

To get started with OpenFOAM, refer to the User Guide provided by CFD Direct.

Utilities (Pre- & Post Processors)#

SALOME#

Similar to TELEMAC, the SALOME platform represents a powerful toolkit for generating computational meshes for OpenFOAM. Download SALOME from salome-platform.org for your distribution (here: Linux Ubuntu).

Unpack the SALOME package in a convenient folder (replace the .tar.gz file name with the one you downloaded):

tar xfz SALOME-9.6.0-UB20.04-SRC.tar.gz

Install dependencies:

sudo apt install net-tools libopengl0 libtbb-dev libcdt5 libcgraph6 libgvc6 libgdal32 libnlopt-cxx-dev libcminpack1 libfreeimage3

To run SALOME, cd to the directory where the unpacked package is located and type salome:

cd SALOME-9.6.0-UB20.04-SRC.tar.gz
source env_launch.sh
./salome

If ./salome does not work (in particular on a virtual machine), try to run ./mesa_salome (prevents problems with openGL in the Mesh module), or re-compile SALOME:

./sat prepare SALOME-9.6.0
./sat -t compile SALOME-9.6.0
./sat environ SALOME-9.6.0
./sat launcher SALOME-9.6.0
./salome

If there is an error such as:

HyMo@HydroDebian:~/Downloads/SALOME-9.6.0-UB20.04-SRC$ ./salome
runSalome running on HydroDebian
Searching for a free port for naming service: 2811 - OK
Searching Naming Service  +omniNames: (0) 20XX-XX-XX 12:34:13.123745: -ORBendPoint option overriding default endpoint.
 found in 0.1 seconds
Searching /Kernel/Session in Naming Service  +SALOME_Session_Server: error while loading shared libraries: libtbb.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Warning, no type found for resource "localhost", using default value "single_machine"
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/HyMo/Downloads/SALOME-9.6.0-UB20.04-SRC/BINARIES-UB20.04/KERNEL/bin/salome/orbmodule.py", line 181, in waitNSPID
    os.kill(thePID,0)
ProcessLookupError: [Errno 3] No such process

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/HyMo/Downloads/SALOME-9.6.0-UB20.04-SRC/BINARIES-DEB10/KERNEL/bin/salome/runSalome.py", line 679, in useSalome
    clt = [...]
  File "/home/HyMo/Downloads/SALOME-9.6.0-UB20.04-SRC/BINARIES-DEB10/KERNEL/bin/salome/orbmodule.py", line 183, in waitNSPID
    raise RuntimeError("Process %d for %s not found" % (thePID,theName)
RuntimeError: Process 29241 for /Kernel/Session not found
--- Error during Salome launch ---

Then look for the missing libraries indicated in the above block with error while loading shared libraries: libtbb.so.2: cannot open shared object file. In this case, libtbb is missing, which can be installed with sudo apt install libtbb-dev.

FreeCAD#

FreeCAD is available for most common platforms (operating systems) including Windows, Linux, and macOS. Find the most recent version and installation instructions on the developer’s website.