When an OpenFOAM simulation runs in parallel, the data for decomposed fields and
mesh(es) has historically been stored in multiple files within separate
directories for each processor. Processor directories are named 'processorN',
where N is the processor number.
This commit introduces an alternative "collated" file format where the data for
each decomposed field (and mesh) is collated into a single file, which is
written and read on the master processor. The files are stored in a single
directory named 'processors'.
The new format produces significantly fewer files - one per field, instead of N
per field. For large parallel cases, this avoids the restriction on the number
of open files imposed by the operating system limits.
The file writing can be threaded allowing the simulation to continue running
while the data is being written to file. NFS (Network File System) is not
needed when using the the collated format and additionally, there is an option
to run without NFS with the original uncollated approach, known as
"masterUncollated".
The controls for the file handling are in the OptimisationSwitches of
etc/controlDict:
OptimisationSwitches
{
...
//- Parallel IO file handler
// uncollated (default), collated or masterUncollated
fileHandler uncollated;
//- collated: thread buffer size for queued file writes.
// If set to 0 or not sufficient for the file size threading is not used.
// Default: 2e9
maxThreadFileBufferSize 2e9;
//- masterUncollated: non-blocking buffer size.
// If the file exceeds this buffer size scheduled transfer is used.
// Default: 2e9
maxMasterFileBufferSize 2e9;
}
When using the collated file handling, memory is allocated for the data in the
thread. maxThreadFileBufferSize sets the maximum size of memory in bytes that
is allocated. If the data exceeds this size, the write does not use threading.
When using the masterUncollated file handling, non-blocking MPI communication
requires a sufficiently large memory buffer on the master node.
maxMasterFileBufferSize sets the maximum size in bytes of the buffer. If the
data exceeds this size, the system uses scheduled communication.
The installation defaults for the fileHandler choice, maxThreadFileBufferSize
and maxMasterFileBufferSize (set in etc/controlDict) can be over-ridden within
the case controlDict file, like other parameters. Additionally the fileHandler
can be set by:
- the "-fileHandler" command line argument;
- a FOAM_FILEHANDLER environment variable.
A foamFormatConvert utility allows users to convert files between the collated
and uncollated formats, e.g.
mpirun -np 2 foamFormatConvert -parallel -fileHandler uncollated
An example case demonstrating the file handling methods is provided in:
$FOAM_TUTORIALS/IO/fileHandling
The work was undertaken by Mattijs Janssens, in collaboration with Henry Weller.
See tutorials/compressible/rhoPimpleFoam/RAS/squareBendLiq for exapmle
pimpleControl: Added SIMPLErho option for running in SIMPLE mode
with large time-step/Courant number and relaxation. With this option the
density is updated from thermodynamics rather than continuity after the pressure
equation which is better behaved if pressure is relaxed and/or solved to a
loose relative tolerance. The need for this option is demonstrated in the
tutorials/compressible/rhoPimpleFoam/RAS/angledDuct tutorial which is unstable
without the option.
terms of the local barycentric coordinates of the current tetrahedron,
rather than the global coordinate system.
Barycentric tracking works on any mesh, irrespective of mesh quality.
Particles do not get "lost", and tracking does not require ad-hoc
"corrections" or "rescues" to function robustly, because the calculation
of particle-face intersections is unambiguous and reproducible, even at
small angles of incidence.
Each particle position is defined by topology (i.e. the decomposed tet
cell it is in) and geometry (i.e. where it is in the cell). No search
operations are needed on restart or reconstruct, unlike when particle
positions are stored in the global coordinate system.
The particle positions file now contains particles' local coordinates
and topology, rather than the global coordinates and cell. This change
to the output format is not backwards compatible. Existing cases with
Lagrangian data will not restart, but they will still run from time
zero without any modification. This change was necessary in order to
guarantee that the loaded particle is valid, and therefore
fundamentally prevent "loss" and "search-failure" type bugs (e.g.,
2517, 2442, 2286, 1836, 1461, 1341, 1097).
The tracking functions have also been converted to function in terms
of displacement, rather than end position. This helps remove floating
point error issues, particularly towards the end of a tracking step.
Wall bounded streamlines have been removed. The implementation proved
incompatible with the new tracking algorithm. ParaView has a surface
LIC plugin which provides equivalent, or better, functionality.
Additionally, bug report <https://bugs.openfoam.org/view.php?id=2517>
is resolved by this change.
Description
Base-class for thermophysical properties of solids, liquids and gases
providing an interface compatible with the templated thermodynamics
packages.
liquidProperties, solidProperties and thermophysicalFunction libraries have been
combined with the new thermophysicalProperties class into a single
thermophysicalProperties library to simplify compilation and linkage of models,
libraries and applications dependent on these classes.
The fundamental properties provided by the specie class hierarchy were
mole-based, i.e. provide the properties per mole whereas the fundamental
properties provided by the liquidProperties and solidProperties classes are
mass-based, i.e. per unit mass. This inconsistency made it impossible to
instantiate the thermodynamics packages (rhoThermo, psiThermo) used by the FV
transport solvers on liquidProperties. In order to combine VoF with film and/or
Lagrangian models it is essential that the physical propertied of the three
representations of the liquid are consistent which means that it is necessary to
instantiate the thermodynamics packages on liquidProperties. This requires
either liquidProperties to be rewritten mole-based or the specie classes to be
rewritten mass-based. Given that most of OpenFOAM solvers operate
mass-based (solve for mass-fractions and provide mass-fractions to sub-models it
is more consistent and efficient if the low-level thermodynamics is also
mass-based.
This commit includes all of the changes necessary for all of the thermodynamics
in OpenFOAM to operate mass-based and supports the instantiation of
thermodynamics packages on liquidProperties.
Note that most users, developers and contributors to OpenFOAM will not notice
any difference in the operation of the code except that the confusing
nMoles 1;
entries in the thermophysicalProperties files are no longer needed or used and
have been removed in this commet. The only substantial change to the internals
is that species thermodynamics are now "mixed" with mass rather than mole
fractions. This is more convenient except for defining reaction equilibrium
thermodynamics for which the molar rather than mass composition is usually know.
The consequence of this can be seen in the adiabaticFlameT, equilibriumCO and
equilibriumFlameT utilities in which the species thermodynamics are
pre-multiplied by their molecular mass to effectively convert them to mole-basis
to simplify the definition of the reaction equilibrium thermodynamics, e.g. in
equilibriumCO
// Reactants (mole-based)
thermo FUEL(thermoData.subDict(fuelName)); FUEL *= FUEL.W();
// Oxidant (mole-based)
thermo O2(thermoData.subDict("O2")); O2 *= O2.W();
thermo N2(thermoData.subDict("N2")); N2 *= N2.W();
// Intermediates (mole-based)
thermo H2(thermoData.subDict("H2")); H2 *= H2.W();
// Products (mole-based)
thermo CO2(thermoData.subDict("CO2")); CO2 *= CO2.W();
thermo H2O(thermoData.subDict("H2O")); H2O *= H2O.W();
thermo CO(thermoData.subDict("CO")); CO *= CO.W();
// Product dissociation reactions
thermo CO2BreakUp
(
CO2 == CO + 0.5*O2
);
thermo H2OBreakUp
(
H2O == H2 + 0.5*O2
);
Please report any problems with this substantial but necessary rewrite of the
thermodynamic at https://bugs.openfoam.org
Henry G. Weller
CFD Direct Ltd.
Combined 'dQ()' and 'Sh()' into 'Qdot()' which returns the heat-release rate in
the normal units [kg/m/s3] and used as the heat release rate source term in
the energy equations, to set the field 'Qdot' in several combustion solvers
and for the evaluation of the local time-step when running LTS.
Renamed the original 'laminar' model to 'Stokes' to indicate it is a
linear stress model supporting both Newtonian and non-Newtonian
viscosity.
This general framework will support linear, non-linear, visco-elastic
etc. laminar transport models.
For backward compatibility the 'Stokes' laminar stress model can be
selected either the original 'laminar' 'simulationType'
specification in turbulenceProperties:
simulationType laminar;
or using the new more general 'laminarModel' specification:
simulationType laminar;
laminar
{
laminarModel Stokes;
}
which allows other laminar stress models to be selected.
Required to support LTS with the -postProcess option with sub-models dependent on ddt
terms during construction, in particular reactingTwoPhaseEulerFoam.
Provides efficient integration of complex laminar reaction chemistry,
combining the advantages of automatic dynamic specie and reaction
reduction with ISAT (in situ adaptive tabulation). The advantages grow
as the complexity of the chemistry increases.
References:
Contino, F., Jeanmart, H., Lucchini, T., & D’Errico, G. (2011).
Coupling of in situ adaptive tabulation and dynamic adaptive chemistry:
An effective method for solving combustion in engine simulations.
Proceedings of the Combustion Institute, 33(2), 3057-3064.
Contino, F., Lucchini, T., D'Errico, G., Duynslaegher, C.,
Dias, V., & Jeanmart, H. (2012).
Simulations of advanced combustion modes using detailed chemistry
combined with tabulation and mechanism reduction techniques.
SAE International Journal of Engines,
5(2012-01-0145), 185-196.
Contino, F., Foucher, F., Dagaut, P., Lucchini, T., D’Errico, G., &
Mounaïm-Rousselle, C. (2013).
Experimental and numerical analysis of nitric oxide effect on the
ignition of iso-octane in a single cylinder HCCI engine.
Combustion and Flame, 160(8), 1476-1483.
Contino, F., Masurier, J. B., Foucher, F., Lucchini, T., D’Errico, G., &
Dagaut, P. (2014).
CFD simulations using the TDAC method to model iso-octane combustion
for a large range of ozone seeding and temperature conditions
in a single cylinder HCCI engine.
Fuel, 137, 179-184.
Two tutorial cases are currently provided:
+ tutorials/combustion/chemFoam/ic8h18_TDAC
+ tutorials/combustion/reactingFoam/laminar/counterFlowFlame2D_GRI_TDAC
the first of which clearly demonstrates the advantage of dynamic
adaptive chemistry providing ~10x speedup,
the second demonstrates ISAT on the modest complex GRI mechanisms for
methane combustion, providing a speedup of ~4x.
More tutorials demonstrating TDAC on more complex mechanisms and cases
will be provided soon in addition to documentation for the operation and
settings of TDAC. Also further updates to the TDAC code to improve
consistency and integration with the rest of OpenFOAM and further
optimize operation can be expected.
Original code providing all algorithms for chemistry reduction and
tabulation contributed by Francesco Contino, Tommaso Lucchini, Gianluca
D’Errico, Hervé Jeanmart, Nicolas Bourgeois and Stéphane Backaert.
Implementation updated, optimized and integrated into OpenFOAM-dev by
Henry G. Weller, CFD Direct Ltd with the help of Francesco Contino.
These new names are more consistent and logical because:
primitiveField():
primitiveFieldRef():
Provides low-level access to the Field<Type> (primitive field)
without dimension or mesh-consistency checking. This should only be
used in the low-level functions where dimensional consistency is
ensured by careful programming and computational efficiency is
paramount.
internalField():
internalFieldRef():
Provides access to the DimensionedField<Type, GeoMesh> of values on
the internal mesh-type for which the GeometricField is defined and
supports dimension and checking and mesh-consistency checking.
In order to simplify expressions involving dimensioned internal field it
is preferable to use a simpler access convention. Given that
GeometricField is derived from DimensionedField it is simply a matter of
de-referencing this underlying type unlike the boundary field which is
peripheral information. For consistency with the new convention in
"tmp" "dimensionedInteralFieldRef()" has been renamed "ref()".
Non-const access to the internal field now obtained from a specifically
named access function consistent with the new names for non-canst access
to the boundary field boundaryFieldRef() and dimensioned internal field
dimensionedInternalFieldRef().
See also commit a4e2afa4b3
Given that the type of the dimensioned internal field is encapsulated in
the GeometricField class the name need not include "Field"; the type
name is "Internal" so
volScalarField::DimensionedInternalField -> volScalarField::Internal
In addition to the ".dimensionedInternalField()" access function the
simpler "()" de-reference operator is also provided to greatly simplify
FV equation source term expressions which need not evaluate boundary
conditions. To demonstrate this kEpsilon.C has been updated to use
dimensioned internal field expressions in the k and epsilon equation
source terms.
e.g. (fvc::interpolate(HbyA) & mesh.Sf()) -> fvc::flux(HbyA)
This removes the need to create an intermediate face-vector field when
computing fluxes which is more efficient, reduces the peak storage and
improved cache coherency in addition to providing a simpler and cleaner
API.
The deprecated non-const tmp functionality is now on the compiler switch
NON_CONST_TMP which can be enabled by adding -DNON_CONST_TMP to EXE_INC
in the Make/options file. However, it is recommended to upgrade all
code to the new safer tmp by using the '.ref()' member function rather
than the non-const '()' dereference operator when non-const access to
the temporary object is required.
Please report any problems on Mantis.
Henry G. Weller
CFD Direct.
in case of tmp misuse.
Simplified tmp reuse pattern in field algebra to use tmp copy and
assignment rather than the complex delayed call to 'ptr()'.
Removed support for unused non-const 'REF' storage of non-tmp objects due to C++
limitation in constructor overloading: if both tmp(T&) and tmp(const T&)
constructors are provided resolution is ambiguous.
The turbulence libraries have been upgraded and '-DCONST_TMP' option
specified in the 'options' file to switch to the new 'tmp' behavior.
The boundary conditions of HbyA are now constrained by the new "constrainHbyA"
function which applies the velocity boundary values for patches for which the
velocity cannot be modified by assignment and pressure extrapolation is
not specified via the new
"fixedFluxExtrapolatedPressureFvPatchScalarField".
The new function "constrainPressure" sets the pressure gradient
appropriately for "fixedFluxPressureFvPatchScalarField" and
"fixedFluxExtrapolatedPressureFvPatchScalarField" boundary conditions to
ensure the evaluated flux corresponds to the known velocity values at
the boundary.
The "fixedFluxPressureFvPatchScalarField" boundary condition operates
exactly as before, ensuring the correct flux at fixed-flux boundaries by
compensating for the body forces (gravity in particular) with the
pressure gradient.
The new "fixedFluxExtrapolatedPressureFvPatchScalarField" boundary
condition may be used for cases with or without body-forces to set the
pressure gradient to compensate not only for the body-force but also the
extrapolated "HbyA" which provides a second-order boundary condition for
pressure. This is useful for a range a problems including impinging
flow, extrapolated inlet conditions with body-forces or for highly
viscous flows, pressure-induced separation etc. To test this boundary
condition at walls in the motorBike tutorial case set
lowerWall
{
type fixedFluxExtrapolatedPressure;
}
motorBikeGroup
{
type fixedFluxExtrapolatedPressure;
}
Currently the new extrapolated pressure boundary condition is supported
for all incompressible and sub-sonic compressible solvers except those
providing implicit and tensorial porosity support. The approach will be
extended to cover these solvers and options in the future.
Note: the extrapolated pressure boundary condition is experimental and
requires further testing to assess the range of applicability,
stability, accuracy etc.
Henry G. Weller
CFD Direct Ltd.
fvOptions are transferred to the database on construction using
fv::options::New which returns a reference. The same function can be
use for construction and lookup so that fvOptions are now entirely
demand-driven.
The abstract base-classes for fvOptions now reside in the finiteVolume
library simplifying compilation and linkage. The concrete
implementations of fvOptions are still in the single monolithic
fvOptions library but in the future this will be separated into smaller
libraries based on application area which may be linked at run-time in
the same manner as functionObjects.
so that the specification of the name and dimensions are optional in property dictionaries.
Update tutorials so that the name of the dimensionedScalar property is
no longer duplicated but optional dimensions are still provided and are
checked on read.
