OpenFOAM Pros and Cons

The first and best thing I Love about Foaming is the open source felicities.

The ease of flexibility of mesh importing

Light weight

Speed computing

Ease of convergence Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Lack of proper Learning sources:

During my work i had to solve a CHT (Conjugate Heat Transfer) problem, For that i had suggested openFOAM to my employer and i tried and browsed a lot for defining the boundaries conditions, but have not find a best source related and i got confused. by the end we used openfoam for visualizing the fluid flow only and for CHT we moved to commercial software.After few days i left that job.

Difficult for starting stage:

I am aware of unlike the commercial software the openFOAM had less GUI, but at my staring days i had invested (worthy) time to learn.

Job market:

I am from India and i have not find a single job opening or requirement on openFOAM tool. I am not aware of outside of India. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

OpenFOAM has a lot of uses. Literally, anything can be done via OpenFOAM. Every variable in a flow system can be manipulated resulting in results as precise to the real cases as possible. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

OpenFOAM, because of its humongous similarity to the real world physics, has lots of variables. Each variable is stored in different text files in a particular format. If new variables are to be introduced to a preexisting sample file, the format in which they have to be introduced can be quite challenging. Remembering the format for each text file will also be difficult. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

OpenFORM is like a tool that you can control and customize for your own good. If you are into building your own gear, OpenFORM is the choice for your CFD simulation. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I don't have a specific dislike for openform, except that since less people are using it, sometimes it's hard to find more information and ideas when you got stuck. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I like the Structure of the Output files and the case files it self. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I do not like the fact that OpenFOAM has no a text to highlight it 's key words with different color. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I have been using openfoam for many years. It is great that I can easily develop and test new solvers and physical models. The parallel capability is also great for running research level problems that may need large resources. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I do not like that some or even many of the models or routines in the code are not described and I have to go and check or follow each class and objects to see how this particular model or routine works Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It is easy to use and learn. One can get accurate and reliable results form OpenFOAM than many other softwares available. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I found it very difficult to install OpenFOAM software and sometimes It just got crash or slowed my laptop. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

the object-oriented structure of the code;

the routines for particle tracking and interpolation Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

there were a few bugs that probably got fixed in later versions. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The number of frame and rate at the time of saving file ask and show the warning if is there have in setting. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Time require to animation is very large I.e. it is time consuming while creating animation files. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Automatic Meshing.

Snappy Hex Mesh

BlockMesh Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Postprocessing

I didn't like paraview because it is difficult to compute Q Certion in paraview Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It a good platform to the users to build and solve their own governing equations based on a specific problem. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

While handling libraries the command mode provides a great flexibility to users. Also for beginners those who are not very familiar with c++ library they will face quite difficulty at the beginning. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.