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Meshes in OpenFOAM

  • OpenFOAM uses Cartesian coordinates. All the cases in OpenFOAM are computed as a three-dimensional. Even if the case is one-dimensional or two-dimensional, it is necessary to have at least one volume cell in each direction.

  • In general, there are three ways how to create mesh for OpenFOAM:
    • Creating mesh in blockMesh – part of OpenFOAM
    • Creating mesh in snappyHexMesh – part of OpenFOAM
    • Creating mesh with other tools and importing it to OpenFOAM. OpenFOAM supports following mesh conversions:
      ansysToFoam
      cfx4ToFoam
      datToFoam
      fluent3DMeshToFoam
      fluentMeshToFoam
      foamMeshToFluent
      foamToStarMesh
      foamToSurface
      gambitToFoam
      gmshToFoam
      ideasUnvToFoam
      kivaToFoam
      mshToFoam
      netgenNeutralToFoam
      plot3dToFoam
      sammToFoam
      star3ToFoam
      star4ToFoam
      tetgenToFoam
      vtkUnstructuredToFoam
  • OpenFOAM always uses unstructured meshes. Meshes have following structure:
    nameOfTheTestCase 
    img256 constant 
         img256 polyMeshMesh directory
             img256 pointsList of mesh points
             img256 facesList of mesh faces
             img256 ownerList of owners of all entities
             img256 neighbourList of neighbours
             img256 boundaryList of boundaries of the mesh