[vitors]

Hello all,

I'm implementing a boundary condition. I is basically a cylinder in which I need to set a fixedValue or fixedGradient profile.

Better saying, I need to get the faces of this cylinder and define a function for the faces values following the axial direction. I have an idea how to access my patch faces, but I don't know if I can get information among faces to check if they're neighbours in the axial direction.

Trying again: from top to bottom, my cylinder must have fixedValues following a cosinoidal function or a x^2 function.

Let me know if my point is not clear to try to explain in better words.

And thank you very much in advance for any help.

Vitor

[Bernhard]

By far the easiest way to obtain the desired result will be to use groovyBC (part of swak4Foam)
http://openfoamwiki.net/index.php/Contrib/swak4Foam contains source code and a bunch of examples that should get you going.

[vitors]

Thanks Bernhard.

I took a look on the source code but I could not realize how to get the orientation of cells. Reading openFoam documentation, I saw no method in fvPatch which somehow give me faces orientation.

A newbie question: there is any orientation (xyz axis) in a mesh file? Or every face are identified by its neighbours? More: how to know if a face is over another one?

Maybe these are stupid questions, but I quite new in the CFD field.

Thanks.

Vitor

[kmooney]

Originally Posted by vitors

Thanks Bernhard.

I took a look on the source code but I could not realize how to get the orientation of cells. Reading openFoam documentation, I saw no method in fvPatch which somehow give me faces orientation.

A newbie question: there is any orientation (xyz axis) in a mesh file? Or every face are identified by its neighbours? More: how to know if a face is over another one?

Maybe these are stupid questions, but I quite new in the CFD field.

Thanks.

Vitor

Something like this might work (copied from another cfdonline post.):

label patchID = mesh.boundaryMesh().findPatchID("myCylinderPatchName"); 

const polyPatch& cPatch = mesh.boundaryMesh()[patchID]; 

vectorList faceNormals(mesh.boundaryField().size(),vector::zero)

forAll(cPatch, faceI) 
{ 
const face& myFace = mesh.boundaryField()[patchID][faceI];
 
faceNormals[faceI] = myFace.normal(mesh.points()); 
}

I wrote this off the top of my head so there might be a bug. If it doesn't work just let me know and I'll fix it! Good luck!

Cheers!

[vitors]

Hello kmooney,

I am studying the code you posted to have a deeper understand of it. Actually, I intend to understand OpenFOAM's classes and structures.

label patchID = mesh.boundaryMesh().findPatchID("myCylinderPatchName");
const polyPatch& cPatch = mesh.boundaryMesh()[patchID];
vectorList faceNormals(mesh.boundaryField().size(),vector::zero);
forAll(cPatch, faceI)  
{      
    const face& myFace = mesh.boundaryField()[patchID][faceI];       
    faceNormals[faceI] = myFace.normal(mesh.points());
}

At the first line you get que ID of the patch of which I need to get the faces. Ok.

But in the second line, you directly access a position in the boundaryMesh() method (which give us a boundaryMesh) related to the patchID. I can imagine it works, but I could find no method to access on patch, only the patch() method which gives me a list of patches. I feel like using direct access ([]) to a structure I don't know quite unconfortable. Do you have any pointers about documentation on how can I use these datastructures?

I'm frozen in these lines by now. I ask more questions when I arrive to the faceI variable you mentioned in your code.

Thank you very much for the code example and all your help. I have to say is almost impossible to start program in OpenFOAM without help like yours.

Vitor

[kmooney]

A good place to check for 'documentation' would be in the source code headers (.H files).

In the case of the boundaryMesh access, check out OpenFOAM-version/src/OpenFOAM/lnInclude/polyMesh.H

You'll see a lot of other useful class documentation in this lnInclude folder as well.

[vitors]

Sorry, my fault! I realized now that boundaryMesh() gives me a fvBoundaryMesh instead of a boundaryMesh.

Still learning...

Thanks,

Vitor