OpenFOAM v11 User Guide - 4.7 Case management tools

4.7 Case management tools

There are a set of applications and scripts that help with managing case files and help the user find and set keyword data entries in case files. The tools are described in the following sections.

4.7.1 General file management

There are some tools for general management of case files, including foamListTimes, foamCleanCase and foamCloneCase. A case includes configuration files for various processes such as meshing, case initialisation, simulation and post-processing. Each process generates new data files in various directories, e.g. mesh data is stored in constant/polyMesh, CFD results in time directories, and further post-processing in a postProcessing directory.

The foamListTimes utility lists the time directories for a case, omitting the 0 directory by default. Prior to re-running a CFD simulation, it can be useful to delete the results from the previous simulation. The foamListTimes utility provides this function through the -rm option which deletes the listed time directories, executed by the following command.

The foamCleanCase script aims to reset the case files to their original state, removing all files generated during a workflow including the meshing, post-processing. It deletes directories including: postProcessing and VTK; the constant/polyMesh directory; processor directories from parallel decomposition; and, dynamicCode for run-time compiled code. The script is simply run as follows.

The foamCloneCase script creates a new case, by copying the 0, system and constant directories from an existing case. The copied case is ready to run since the mesh is copied through the constant directory. If the original case is set up to run in parallel, the processor directories can also be copied using the -processor option. The basic command is executed simply as follows, where oldCase refers to an existing case directory.

4.7.2 The foamDictionary script

The foamDictionary utility offers several options for printing, editing and adding keyword entries in case files. The utility is executed with a case dictionary file as an argument, e.g. from within a case directory on the fvSchemes file.

Without options, the utility prints the entries from the file, removing comments, e.g. as follows for the fvSchemes file in the pitzDailySteady tutorial case.

The output includes the macros before expansion, indicated by the $ symbol, e.g. $turbulence. The macros can be expanded by the -expand option as shown below

The -entry option prints the entry for a particular keyword, expanding the macros by default, e.g. divSchemes in the example below

The example clearly extracts the divSchemes dictionary.

The “/” syntax allows access to keywords with levels of sub-dictionary. For example, the div(phi,U) keyword can be accessed within the divSchemes sub-dictionary by the following command.

The example returns the single divSchemes/div(phi,U) entry.

The -value option prints only the entry.

The example removes the keyword and terminating semicolon, leaving just the data.

The -keywords option prints only the keywords.

The example produces a list of keywords inside the divSchemes dictionary.

foamDictionary can set entries with the -set option. If the user wishes to change the div(phi,U) to the upwind scheme, they can enter the following.

An alternative “=” syntax can be used with the -set option which is particularly useful when modifying multiple entries:

foamDictionary can add entries with the -add option. If the user wishes to add an entry named turbulence to divSchemes with the upwind scheme, they can enter the following.

4.7.3 The foamSearch script

The foamSearch script, demonstrated extensively in section 4.5 , uses foamDictionary to extract and sort keyword entries from all files of a specified name in a specified dictionary. The -c option counts the number of entries of each type, e.g. the user could searche for the choice of solver for the p equation in all the fvSolution files in the tutorials.

The search shows GAMG to be the most common choice in all the tutorials.

4.7.4 The foamGet script

The foamGet script copies configuration files into a case quickly and conveniently. The user must be inside a case directory to run the script or identify the case directory with the -case option. Its operation can be described using the pitzDailySteady case described in section 2.1 . The example begins by copying the case directory as follows:

The mesh is generated for the case by going into the case directory and running blockMesh: The user might decide before running the simulation to configure some automatic post-processing as described in section 7.2 . The user can list the pre-configured function objects by the following command. From the output, the user could select the patchFlowRate function to monitor the flow rate at the outlet patch. The patchFlowRate configuration file can be copied into the system directory using foamGet: In order to monitor the flow through the outlet patch, the patch entry in patchFlowRate file should be set as follows: The patchFlowRate configuration is then included in the case by adding to the functions sub-dictionary in the controlDict file:

4.7.5 The foamInfo script

The foamInfo script provides quick information and examples relating to thing in OpenFOAM that the user can “select”. The selections include models (including boundary conditions and packaged function objects), solver modules, applications and scripts. For example, foamInfo prints information about the incompressibleFluid solver module by typing the following:

Information for the flowRateInletVelocity boundary condition can similarly be obtained by typing the following command. The output includes: the location of the source code header file for this boundary condition; the description and usage details from the header file; a list of other models of the same type, i.e. other boundary conditions; and, a list of example cases that use the boundary condition. This example is demonstrated in section 2.1.17 .

When the user requests information about a model with foamInfo, it attempts to provide a list of other models in the “family”. For example, if the user requests information about the kEpsilon turbulence model by

the output includes the following It provides fairly complete lists for fvModels and fvConstraints, which can be demonstrated by typing the following commands. It also lists options used in input files, e.g. for Function1 entries in boundary conditions, searchableSurface entries in the configuration of snappyHexMesh. Users could try searching for specific models within those families or the families themselves, e.g.

4.7.6 The foamToC utility

The foamToC utility lists all the options in OpenFOAM which the user can select through input files. The functionality overlaps with foamInfo to some extent but foamToC produces more definitive reporting since it is an OpenFOAM application which directly interrogates the run-time selection tables in the compiled libraries. The “ToC” in the name is an abbreviation for “Table of Contents.”

As well as providing general options to interrogate anything in OpenFOAM, foamToC includes specific options that replicate most of the “-list…” options included in application solvers prior to v11. These options included: -listScalarBCs and -listVectorBCs to list boundary conditions; -listFunctionObjects to list functionObjects; -listFvModels to list fvModels; and, -listFvConstraints to list fvConstraints. The equivalent options in foamToC are listed below, with an additional -solvers option:

• -scalarBCs and -vectorBCs to list boundary conditions;
• -functionObjects to list functionObjects;
• -fvModels to list fvModels;
• -fvConstraints to list fvConstraints; and,
• -solvers to list the solver modules.

For example, with the last option, foamToC prints the following output

Each fvConstraint is listed in the left column with the library to which it belongs in the right column. The options listed above essentially invoke the more general -table option that lists the contents of a run-time selection table. The -fvConstraints option is equivalent to the following command which lists the items in the fvConstraint table.

All the selection tables in OpenFOAM are listed by running foamToC with the -tables option as shown below. This is also the default response of foamToC without options, i.e. By default foamToC loads all the libraries in OpenFOAM to produce a complete list of tables. The user can control the libraries that are loaded with the following options.

• -noLibs: only loads the core libOpenFOAM.so library by default.
• -solver <solver>: only loads libraries associated with the specified solver module <solver>.
• -libs '("lib1.so" ... "libN.so")': additionally pre-loads specified libraries, e.g. customised libraries of the user.

An important use of foamToC is to enable users to find alternative models to the one currently configured for their case. The challenge is to find the table that contains the models they wish to list. The -search option helps with this, since it takes an entry, e.g. a model, and reports the table in which it belongs. For example, if the user was familiar with the BirdCarreau model for viscosity and wished to list alternative non-Newtonian models, they could first issue the following command.

Having identified the table, the user can then list its contents using the -table option. If the user wished to list the solver modules, they can run which is equivalent to running With turbulence models, a search for kEpsilon lists the following set of tables (the corresponding libraries are not shown here). The output indicates the model exists in different tables corresponding to both incompressible and compressible flows, and both single phase and multi-phase flows (phase indicates multi-phase in the table name). For single phase, incompressible flows, the available RAS turbulence models can be listed as follows.