Links - Software
Software related to CFD. This section is a mix of real links and meta links.
Only particularly interesting things are linked directly. If you want a more
comprehensive overview you should follow the meta links.
To suggest a link to be included in this section please use
the online
link suggestion form. You are of
course also welcome to contact us directly via email at
webmaster@cfd-online.com.
Contents:
Fluid Dynamics
- CFD-Wiki Codes Page
![[GOOD]](Icons/smiley.gif)
- A list of free and commercial codes. Fairly complete, but not always correct and up to date. You can correct any misstakes you find yourself!
- MGNet Code Repository
- Multigrid related software packages.
- Downloadable Software, Aerodynamics and Design
- A collection of programs for analysis and design of wings etc. By Dr. W.
Mason, Viriginia Tech. Nice!
- Public Domain Aeronautical Software
- Sells a CD with a collection of public domain aeronautical programs.
Selected Codes
Below follows a list of free CFD codes.
- OpenFOAM
- OpenFOAM is a general purpose open-source CFD code. OpenFOAM is written
in C++ and uses an object oriented approach which makes it easy to extend.
The package includes modules for a wide range of applications. FOAM was written
by Henry Weller and others at Imperial College. For a few years FOAM was
sold as a commercial code by their company Nabla. However, in 2004 they decided
to release the code under GPL and rename it to OpenFOAM. OpenFOAM was distributed
by their OpenCFD company for a number of years, but in 2011 SGI bought OpenCFD.
SGI then sold OpenCFD and the OpenFOAM trademark to ESI Group in 2012. Henry
and his OpenCFD team left ESI Group in 2015 and started their own company
CFD Direct. The main link above is to the OpenCFD+ version
distributed by ESI. In addition, there is an
OpenFOAM Foundation version.
There is also a separate Foam-extend version
created by Hrvoje Jasak and a group of volunteers. Hrvoje was Technical Director for Nabla and maintains
a separate fork.
OpenFOAM is a very capable code which you definitely should check out if you
are looking for a state-of-the-art CFD code with source-code access.
- SU2
- The Stanford University Unstructured (SU2) suite is an
open-source collection of software tools written in C++ for solving
PDE's and performing optimization problems. This initiative
was launched in January 2012. The software is developed very quickly and there is an active
SU2 forum here on CFD Online, which is actively
followed by the SU2 developers.
- PyFR
- A new open-source CFD code developed by the Vincent Lab at Imperial College. PyFR is a Python based framework using Flux Reconstruction and Explicit Runge-Kutta time integration. PyFR can use GPGPU hardware. If you try PyFR please let us know what you think about it.
- Code_Saturn
- A quickly developing code from EDF with full source code access. We haven't tried it, but it looks promising. Please give us your feedback if you try it.
- FEniCS
- An open-source package for computational mathematical modeling. Has some
functionality to solve Navier-Stokes. Looks very nice. FEniCS is being developed
very quickly and can become very interesting for CFD people. FEniCS and its
sister projects are used extensively in education.
- Gerris Flow Solver
- An open-source CFD code for incompressible flow. Focused on marine and
ocean flow applications. Looks nice and well documented.
- Palabos
- An open source software library for lattice Boltzmann CFD simulations.
Developed and distributed by the FlowKit company.
- Overture
- A large object-oriented C++ framework from LLNL for solving PDE's. Uses overlapping
structured grids. This is a large research code for people who know how to
install and compile things themselves.
- Phoenics V 1.4 as Shareware
- CHAM distributes old versions of Phoenics as shareware.
- Clawpack
- A free software package for conservation laws by Randall J. LeVeque.
- OpenFVM
- A free CFD solver distributed under GPL. Uses Gmsh for pre and post processing.
- FEATFLOW
- FEAT is a general purpose software system for solving PDEs with the finite
element method. The system includes a lot of tools and an incompressible
fluid-flow package called FEATFLOW. The software is available freely with
source (F77) and the site has a lot of further information available online.
The FEAT group are from the University of Heidelberg.
- ISAAC
- A compressible Euler/Navier-Stokes code written in F77. Developed mainly
to test turbulence models. Worth a look if you want a code with advanced
turbulence modeling (it has several two equation models, explicit ARSM models
and full differential RSM models implemented).
- Channelflow
- A spectral Navier-Stokes simulator in C++. Comes with full source and documentation.
- NaSt3DGP
- A free CFD code with source code included. Uses finite volume discretization
on a cartesian non-uniform staggered mesh, VONOS/SMART higher order upwind
schemes and Adams-Bashforth time discretization. The code is parallelized
with MPI and can handle complex geometries by a simple cell decomposition/enumeration
technique.
- TYCHO - TYrolian Computational HydrOdynamics
- An open-source compressible hydrodynamics code written in C and parallelized with OpenMP.
Uses a Lagrangian remap version of the Piecewise Parabolic Method developed by
Paul Woodward and Phil Colella (1984). The code is based on the freely available
VH-1 Package.
Focused on wind-tunnel experiments with special routines for obstacles in wind-stream and
advection of marker fields for investigating obstacle-gas interactions.
- VH-1 (Virginia
Hydrodynamics - 1)
- A multidimensional ideal compressible hydrodynamics code written in Fortran.
Based on the Lagrangian remap version of the Piecewise Parabolic Method (PPM).
- QUICK 'n SIMPLE
- A free 2D, laminar, incompressible CFD code based on the SIMPLE algorithm
with QUICK interpolation. Only available in compiled format for Macintosh
platforms.
- OpenFlower
- An open-source CFD code written in C++. Mainly focused on turbulent, unsteady
and incompressible flow. Beta version released in 2005 but after that not
much has happened (2011).
Mesh Generation
- Mesh Generation Software
- A large list of public domain and commercial mesh generators. Maintained
by Robert Schneiders as a part of the excellent Mesh Generation & Grid Generation on the Web site.
- CEWES MSRC Grid Generation Software Catalog
- A nice directory of grid generation software. Includes several common CFD
grid-generators. They used to have reviews of many packages available online,
but they seem to have removed the reviews now.
Selected Codes
Below follows a list of free mesh generators.
- Gmsh
- An automatic 3D finite element grid generator with a built-in CAD engine and post-processor.
- enGrid
- An open-source mesh generation software for CFD. enGrid uses the Netgen library for tetrahedral grid
generation and an in-house developed method for prismatic boundary layer grids.
- Netgen
- An open-source tetrahedral grid generator. Not directly aimed at CFD.
- Discretizer
- A GPL based free interactive tool to generate geometry and create hexahedral meshes.
- snappyHexMesh
- A mesh generation tool supplied with OpenFOAM.
Generates 3D hexahedral meshes using STL geometries.
Visualization
We have only included a few CFD related visualization links here. For a more complete
coverage you can start surfing from Wikipedia's page on
Scientific visualzation.
You can find more links, often broken, on the old sites
Software for Graphics and Data Analysis,
Yahoo - Visualization or
in the SAL archives on
Software Packages and
Software Libraries.
If you have suggestions on good CFD related visualization links to include here, please let us know.
- ParaView
- A state-of-the-art post-processor designed to be able to handle very large
datasets. Distributed as open-source software. Can read both Ensight and
Plot3D formats. Highly recommended!
- VisIt
- An open-source visualization package developed by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Looks nice.
- OpenDX
- A full-featured open-source scientific visualization package based on IBM's
Visualization Data Explorer. OpenDX is a very capable package and it runs
on most UNIX platforms. Highly recommended!
- MayaVi Data Visualizer
- A very nice & free scientific data visualizer. MayaVi is based on VTK
and runs on Linux, most Unix'es, and Windows. Source code available.
- Visualization Codes at MIT
- pV3 and Visual3, developed for CFD. Some versions are free. This software
is becoming old now. Not many people are looking for software intended for
Unix workstations from SGI or DEC any more, but we will continue to link
it for a while more.
- VIGIE
- VIGIE is a visualization packaged developed at INRIA. It supports X11.
You can download the entire package for free. It also includes source code.
- Se.La.Vi.
- SciEntific LAb for VIsualization - a scientific data visualization package
with an animation engine. Works on MS-Windows platforms. Free for academic
and non-profit use.
Companies
- Advanced Visual Systems, Inc.
- Develops and sells AVS - a very big scientific visualization system.
- Computational Engineering International, Inc.
- Develops and sells EnSight - a software package for the visualization of simulation results.
- Intelligent Light
- Develops and sells Fieldview - a CFD postprocessor.
- inVisu
- Develops and sells VU - a CFD postprocessor.
- Kitware, Inc.
- Develops the open-source visualization tool ParaView.
- NAG, The Numercial Algorithms Group, Ltd.
- Develops and sells IRIS Explorer, a visualization system.
- Tecplot, Inc.
- The makers of Tecplot, a technical plotting and data visualization package.
- VSG, Visualization Sciences Group
- Develops and sells Avizo Wind - a 3D visualization software for simulation data.
Commercial CFD Packages
We will not link all CFD vendors here.
A good place to go if you are looking for a commercial CFD code is to check the
list of
CFD Online's sponsors.
If you have any questions about CFD codes you
are welcome to post them on the
CFD Online Discussion
Forums. These forums are monitored by most CFD code vendors. The links below
are a few collections of CFD codes that can be found on the net. These are not
complete and often not that up-to-date though.
- CFD-Wiki Codes, Commercial
- A fairly complete list of commercial CFD codes. You can update this page yourself
if you find something incorrect or something missing. DO NOT ADVERTISE HERE!
- CFD Codes List, Commercial Products
- Links to many commercial CFD products. The list has not been updated for
many years and is getting very old now.
- COSMIC - NASA's Software Technology Transfer Center
- Software information exchange between NASA and the public. Has an online
catalog with more than 850 program abstracts. The codes usually cost money
to get.
