OpenFOAM¶

This tutorial guides through the installation of OpenFOAM on Ubuntu Linux and Debian Linux. For installing OpenFOAM on many other platforms (even Windows) visit the developer’s website.

Ubuntu (incl. Mint and Lubuntu)¶

The installation on Ubuntu Linux or one of its derivatives is probably one of the easiest and most sustainable ways for working with OpenFOAM.

Install OpenFOAM¶

The installation on any Ubuntu Linux platform is straight-forward and can be carried out as described on the developer’s website. In detail, these steps include:

Download and add the gpg key sudo sh -c "wget -O - https://dl.openfoam.org/gpg.key | apt-key add -"
Add the repository to sources.list sudo add-apt-repository http://dl.openfoam.org/ubuntu
Update the apt package list sudo apt update
Install OpenFOAM along with a tailored version of ParaView: sudo apt-get -y install openfoam8

Optionally, install gedit, which is often used in the documentation and for instructions for setting environment variables:

sudo apt install gedit

Tip

Even though the developer’s installation instructions suggest using apt-get update / install, preferably use apt update / install.

Update OpenFOAM¶

The OpenFOAM developers periodically update (recompile) new versions of openfoam8. To get these latest versions run:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install --only-upgrade openfoam8

Setup User Configuration¶

OpenFOAM uses a set of environment variables that aid calling the program and its helpers. To define environment variables, every OpenFOAM Ubuntu user needs to modify the .bashrc file, which lives in the /home/USER/ directory:

Open the user .bashrc file: gedit ~/.bashrc
On the bottom of the .bashrc file add: source /opt/openfoam8/etc/bashrc
Save and close the user .bashrc file.

Open a new Terminal (or, to be sure, re-login on Ubuntu) and test if the system recognizes the OpenFOAM environment variables:

simpleFoam -help

Usage simpleFoam [Options]
...

If correctly setup, Terminal returns a set of options for running OpenFOAM.

Test-run¶

With the environment variables defined, create a new directory for OpenFOAM projects:

cd ~
mkdir OpenFoam8
cd OpenFoam8

Copy the pitzDaily OpenFOAM tutorial by using the $FOAM_[...] environment variables (full list):

mkdir -p $FOAM_RUN
cd $FOAM_RUN
cp -r $FOAM_TUTORIALS/incompressible/simpleFoam/pitzDaily .

Run the blockMesh (pre), the simpleFoam (main), and the paraFoam (post) processors:

cd pitzDaily
blockMesh
simpleFoam
paraFoam

To get started with OpenFoam, refer to the User Guide provided by CFD Direct.

Debian 10¶

Prerequisites¶

Debian users will need to install curl and docker for being able to install OpenFOAM. First, make sure to get rid of any out-dated version of docker (if this returns an error, that is not a problem):

sudo apt-get remove docker docker-engine docker.io containerd runc

Install docker dependencies:

sudo apt install apt-transport-https ca-certificates curl gnupg

Add docker’s GPG keys:

curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/debian/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/docker-archive-keyring.gpg

Add the stable docker repository:

 echo "deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/docker-archive-keyring.gpg] https://download.docker.com/linux/debian \
$(lsb_release -cs) stable" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null

Update apt and install docker:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io

Verify the successful installation of docker:

sudo docker run hello-world

Until here, docker is installed for sudoers only. To enable running docker and OpenFOAM for any user, the user’s USERNAME must be added to the system’s docker group. Therefore, add every docker and OpenFOAM user to the ``docker`` group (required for every USERNAME):

sudo usermod -aG docker USERNAME

With docker being installed, the system is ready for the installation of OpenFOAM on Debian.

On a remote desktop computer or a virtual machine, make sure to also install X11 and Xrdp, for example for an Xfce desktop:

sudo apt install xorg dbus-x11 x11-xserver-utils
sudo apt install xfce4 xfce4-goodies xrdp

Install OpenFOAM (v8)¶

Download the latest OpenFOAM package for docker:

sudo sh -c "wget http://dl.openfoam.org/docker/openfoam8-linux -O /usr/bin/openfoam8-linux"

Make the downloaded openfoam8-linux script executable:

sudo chmod 755 /usr/bin/openfoam8-linux

Get Started (First-time Launch)¶

Create a new directory (e.g., /home/OpenFoam8/) and launch the openfoam8-linux environment:

cd ~
mkdir OpenFoam8
cd OpenFoam8
openfoam8-linux

The docker environment should now be launched in Terminal. To test OpenFOAM, copy the pitzDaily OpenFOAM tutorial by using the FOAm environment variables:

mkdir -p $FOAM_RUN
cd $FOAM_RUN
cp -r $FOAM_TUTORIALS/incompressible/simpleFoam/pitzDaily .

Run the blockMesh (pre), the simpleFoam (main), and the paraFoam (post) processors:

cd pitzDaily
blockMesh
simpleFoam
paraFoam

To quit docker, tap exit. The installation procedure is described in detail on the developer’s website.

Usual Launch Procedure¶

With docker and OpenFOAM being installed, every user of the docker group (see above instructions for adding users to the docker group) can launch OpenFOAM through Terminal by entering:

openfoam8-linux

To quit the program tap (in Terminal/docker):

exit

To get started with OpenFoam, refer to the User Guide provided by CFD Direct.

External Utilities (Pre- & Post Processors)¶

SALOME¶

Similar as for TELEMAC, the SALOME platform represents a powerful toolkit for generating computational meshes for OpenFOPAM. Download SALOME from SALOME-platform.org for your distribution (here: Linux Ubuntu).

Unpack the SALOME package in a convenient folder (replace the .tar.gz file name with the one you downloaded):

tar xfz SALOME-9.6.0-UB20.04-SRC.tar.gz

Install dependencies:

sudo apt install net-tools libopengl0 libtbb-dev

To run SALOME, cd to the directory where the unpacked package is located and typ SALOME:

cd SALOME-9.6.0-UB20.04-SRC.tar.gz
source env_launch.sh
./salome

If ./SALOME does not work (in particular on a Virtual Machine), try to run ./mesa_SALOME (prevents problems with openGL in the Mesh module), or re-compile SALOME:

./sat prepare SALOME-9.6.0
./sat -t compile SALOME-9.6.0
./sat environ SALOME-9.6.0
./sat launcher SALOME-9.6.0
./salome

If there is any error such as:

HyMo@HydroDebian:~/Downloads/SALOME-9.6.0-UB20.04-SRC$ ./salome
runSalome running on HydroDebian
Searching for a free port for naming service: 2811 - OK
Searching Naming Service  +omniNames: (0) 20XX-XX-XX 12:34:13.123745: -ORBendPoint option overriding default endpoint.
 found in 0.1 seconds
Searching /Kernel/Session in Naming Service  +SALOME_Session_Server: error while loading shared libraries: libtbb.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Warning, no type found for resource "localhost", using default value "single_machine"
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/HyMo/Downloads/SALOME-9.6.0-UB20.04-SRC/BINARIES-UB20.04/KERNEL/bin/salome/orbmodule.py", line 181, in waitNSPID
        os.kill(thePID,0)
ProcessLookupError: [Errno 3] No such process

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/HyMo/Downloads/SALOME-9.6.0-UB20.04-SRC/BINARIES-DEB10/KERNEL/bin/salome/runSalome.py", line 679, in useSalome
        clt = [...]
  File "/home/HyMo/Downloads/SALOME-9.6.0-UB20.04-SRC/BINARIES-DEB10/KERNEL/bin/salome/orbmodule.py", line 183, in waitNSPID
        raise RuntimeError("Process %d for %s not found" % (thePID,theName))
RuntimeError: Process 29241 for /Kernel/Session not found
--- Error during Salome launch ---

Look for the missing libraries indicated in the above block with error while loading shared libraries: libtbb.so.2: cannot open shared object file. In this case libtbb is missing, which can be installed with sudo apt install libtbb-dev.

Hydro-Informatics