The Complete Introduction to OpenFOAM

Computational modelling is already central to modern engineering and industry with the demand for skilled professionals steadily rising with time. Unfortunately the software suitable for these roles often costs tens of thousands of dollars for a license and/or is prohibitively complicated to learn and put into practice. Being opensource and used in many active companies today, OpenFOAM is an excellent way to learn these methods and greatly enhance your ability to solve engineering problems. While structured in a way that makes it highly flexible and ideal for making your own projects, learning OpenFOAM without help can be a daunting prospect.

The purpose of this course is to give a simple and straightforward introduction to OpenFOAM covering common bugs and mistakes so that you can easily pass through the steep initial learning curve at your own pace. While the lessons learned here can be applied to any OpenFOAM solver (of which there is a substantial range), the focus is on solid mechanics since the implementation is typically much simpler than more popular applications (high speed flow, etc.). In addition, since solid mechanics is necessary for most engineering disciplines even if it isn’t that discipline’s primary interest (aerodynamics centres around the interaction between solid objects and fluid flows for example), solid mechanics is an excellent core skill to have and a necessary theoretical precursor to a healthy understanding of fluid dynamics of all forms.