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 
     constant 
          polyMeshMesh directory
              pointsList of mesh points
              facesList of mesh faces
              ownerList of owners of all entities
              neighbourList of neighbours
              boundaryList of boundaries of the mesh