Validation of OpenFOAM as Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Software

Abstract

Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) software is doing a critical role in the modern era of engineering. It is very important especially to the aeronautical and aerospace engineering fields. New CFD software comes in to the modern world day by day and OpenFOAM (Open source Field Operation and Manipulation) is a CFD software and, since it is open source software, it was not gone through proper validation for the results being generated. From this research project, authors aim to validate the OpenFOAM software by conducting CFD simulations for four different test cases; a 2D airfoil, finite wing, passenger car and flow over wedge. First three simulations have been performed in the subsonic regime while the latter one has been analysed for the supersonic flows. The research findings shows greater agreement between the OpenFOAM CFD predictions and validation data. (AIAA, 1998) Further outcomes immensely contribute to motivate researchers to utilize OpenFOAM for CFD analysis.