OpenFOAM foundation course presented in two provinces

The two-day OpenFOAM foundation course, sponsored by the CHPC, was held in Cape Town and Gauteng. The workshops were available to all scientists and engineers, practitioners and professionals, researchers and students working in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) in South Africa. Thirty-eight delegates from universities (students and researchers) and industry (engineers from Armscor, Mintek and others) attended the two workshops.

The foundation course is a comprehensive introduction to the installation and use of OpenFOAM with many practical demonstrations. OpenFOAM is a powerful open source CFD toolbox incorporating solvers, pre- and post-processors, libraries and utilities in a flexible object-orientated C++ framework which can simulate complex fluid flows involving chemical reactions, turbulence and heat transfer, to solid dynamics, electromagnetics and the pricing of financial options. For more information on the capabilities and features of OpenFOAM see the website at www.openfoam.com.

The lecturer for the course was Graham Macpherson from OpenCFD Limited (UK). OpenCFD are the developers of OpenFOAM and provide training and service.

Following the success of the OpenFOAM foundation course, it has been decided that the OpenFOAM advanced course will be presented in December 2009 alongside the CHPC National Meeting and Conference.