Motorbike Simulation with

OpenFOAM
Hasret Türkeri
9 December 2016
OpenFOAM
• Computer software
• Solves equation for flows
• Momentum
• Pressure
• Energy
• …
• Developed for Linux
• No graphic interface
• Run with commands
The Concepts
• CFD : Computational Fluid Dynamics
• Initial and boundary conditions
• Mesh - Grid
• Numerical Methods
•…
Steps in CFD
• Pre-Processing
• Preparation of grid
• Setting initial and boundary conditions
• Selecting numerical schemes
• Processing
• Solving the equation using computer software, OpenFOAM
• Post-Processing
• Plotting and analyzing the results
Pre-Processing in OpenFOAM
Case directory

•0
• U, p, rho,…

• Constant

• System
• blockMesh
• fvSchemes, fvSolutions
Pre-Processing in OpenFOAM
blockMesh
vertices
(
( -5 -4 0)
(15 -4 0)
(15 4 0)
( -5 4 0)
( -5 -4 8)
(15 -4 8)
(15 4 8)
( -5 4 8)
);
blocks
(
hex (0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7) (20 8 8) simpleGrading (1 1 1)
);
Pre-Processing in OpenFOAM
Setting the motorbike velocity
Setting the motorbike velocity
0.org/U => fixedValues => initialConditions -> flowVelocity (20 0 0)

Setting the grid size

In system/blockMesh change the values in green box
blocks
(
hex (0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7) (20 8 8) simpleGrading (1 1 1)
);
Processing with OpenFOAM
• OpenFOAM runs with commands
• ln motorbike case directory
./Allrun
• wait until it finishes, it may take a couple of ten minutes
• Check log.* files in case of any problem
Post-Processing with OpenFOAM
• run the command in the motorbike directory
paraFoam
• Using parafoam draw countor plots, and streamlines to analyze your
results
• For tutorial about post-processing you can refer to the post-
processing section
http://cfd.direct/openfoam/user-guide/tutorials/
How to Start OpenFOAM on Windows
• I strongly recommend to download and install OpenfOAM from the
link below
http://www.cfdsupport.com/install-openfoam-for-windows.html
Follow the instruction on the webpage
How to Start OpenFOAM on Windows
• Open OpenFOAMforWindows 16.10

• C:/OpenFOAM/16.10/Faruk-3.0.x/run
How to Start OpenFOAM on Windows
• Copy motorBike case dir
• From
• C:\OpenFOAM\16.10\cygwin64\opt\OpenFOAM\OpenFOAM-
3.0.x\tutorials\incompressible\simpleFoam
• To
• C:/OpenFOAM/16.10/Faruk-3.0.x/run
How to Start OpenFOAM on Windows
• Open 0.org/initialConditions and set the flow velocity
• flowVelocity (20 0 0) Important: The dimension here is m/s
• Open system/blockMesh change the values in green box

blocks
(
hex (0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7) (20 8 8) simpleGrading (1 1 1)
);
The number of cells in x, y, z,
direction respectively
How to Start OpenFOAM on Windows
• In terminal, change your directory into motorBike
cd motorBike

• In terminal, run the commands

./Allclean
./Allrun

• Wait until it finishes, it may takes a couple ten minutes

• Once it completes, in terminal, run
paraFoam
How to Start OpenFOAM on Windows
• In terminal, change your directory into motorBike
cd motorBike

• In terminal, run the commands

./Allclean
./Allrun

• Wait until it finishes, it may takes a couple ten minutes

• Once it completes, in terminal, run
paraFoam
How to Start OpenFOAM on Windows
• Follow the tutorial for paraFoam at the link
http://cfd.direct/openfoam/user-guide/tutorials/

• Plot contour plots

• Stream lines
• ….