solids4Foam solver

solids4Foam is the single solver application provided by solids4foam. It is used for solid mechanics, fluid dynamics and fluid-solid interaction analyses alike: the physics, the discretisation and the solution algorithm are all selected at run time, so the same executable runs every case in the toolbox.

Usage

solids4Foam                 # serial
mpirun -np 4 solids4Foam -parallel   # parallel

The type of analysis is set by constant/physicsProperties:

type    solid;    // solid | fluid | fluidSolidInteraction

Each choice then reads its own dictionary:

type Dictionary Base class
solid constant/solidProperties solidModel
fluid constant/fluidProperties fluidModel
fluidSolidInteraction constant/fsiProperties fluidSolidInterface

The solver code

The solver is deliberately thin; it contains no details of the physics or the discretisation. Its source is applications/solvers/solids4Foam/solids4Foam.C:

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
#   include "setRootCase.H"
#   include "createTime.H"
#   include "solids4FoamWriteHeader.H"

    // Create the general physics class
    autoPtr<physicsModel> physics = physicsModel::New(runTime);

    while (runTime.run())
    {
        // Update deltaT, if desired, before moving to the next step
        physics().setDeltaT(runTime);

        runTime++;

        if (physics().printInfo())
        {
            Info<< "Time = " << runTime.timeName() << nl << endl;
        }

        // Solve the mathematical model
        physics().evolve();

        // Let the physics model know the end of the time-step has been reached
        physics().updateTotalFields();

        if (runTime.outputTime())
        {
            physics().writeFields(runTime);
        }

        if (physics().printInfo())
        {
            Info<< "ExecutionTime = " << runTime.elapsedCpuTime() << " s"
                << "  ClockTime = " << runTime.elapsedClockTime() << " s"
                << nl << endl;
        }
    }

    physics().end();

    Info<< nl << "End" << nl << endl;

    return(0);
}

A run-time selectable physicsModel object encapsulates the specifics, and virtual functions such as evolve() tell that object to solve its governing equations for the current time step. Adding a new solid model, fluid model or coupling scheme therefore requires no change to the solver.

The physicsModel base class has three derived families:

Source

applications/solvers/solids4Foam