ReleaseNotes.txt

		 _____________________________________

		  *RELEASE NOTES FOR FOAM-EXTEND-4.0*
		 _____________________________________


			     December 2016


Table of Contents
_________________

1 Overview
2 Installation
3 Compatibility
4 Main differentiators between foam-extend and OpenFOAM
5 New features in foam-extend-4.0, since foam-extend-3.2
6 Recent successful compilations and tests
7 Reporting bugs
8 How to contribute
9 List of Contributors:


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1 Overview
==========

  The foam-extend project is a fork of the OpenFOAM® open source library
  for Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). It is an open project
  welcoming and integrating contributions from all users and
  developers. Previously known as OpenFOAM-dev and OpenFOAM-extend, it
  contains bug fixes and performance improvements, as well as extensions
  and additional features provided by community contributors (see file
  ListOfContributors), such as dynamic mesh and topological change
  support, turbomachinery extensions including general grid
  interpolation (GGI), cyclic GGI and mixing plane, block-coupled matrix
  support, implicitly coupled conjugate heat transfer and other physics
  coupling, finite area method, comprehensive dynamic mesh (motion and
  topological changes) capability and GPU support. For a full list, see
  below and previous release notes at:
  [http://sourceforge.net/p/foam-extend/wiki/Home/]

  Version 4.0, nicknamed "Guimaraes", is the current version of
  foam-extend. The release continues the tradition and spirit of the
  original FOAM code developed by prof. Jasak and Mr. Weller during
  their time at Imperial College and released as the general purpose
  CFD/CCM package by Nabla Ltd. in 2000. In this spirit, we reverted 18
  December 2013 to the original numbering scheme (foam-2.3.2, 13
  December 2004) as release number 3.0.  Visit [http://foam-extend.org]
  for more information.

  OPENFOAM is a registered trademark of ESI Group. OpenFOAM-extend and
  foam-extend are a community effort not endorsed by ESI Group.


2 Installation
==============

  foam-extend-4.0 can be compiled and runs on a large variety of Linux,
  Mac or Windows systems

  * Main supported OSs:
    - Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
    - Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
    - Fedora 24
    - Mac OS X
    - Microsoft Windows 7, 8.1 and 10

  * Compile from source:

    Please refer to doc/buildInstructions/ for details. Further
    installation instruction are available on the unofficial OpenFOAM
    Wiki:
    [http://openfoamwiki.net/index.php/Installation/Linux/foam-extend-4.0]
    If you have improvements or build instructions for a new system,
    please share them with the community (see section "How to
    contribute", below).

  * Download binary packages:

    Binary packages are available for download at
    [http://sourceforge.net/projects/foam-extend/] for the following
    systems: Ubuntu 16.04, Fedora 24 and Mac OS X and Windows 10.

  * Accompanying ThirdParty software:
    - gcc compatibility up to 4.9.2
    - bison 2.7
    - cmake 3.2.2
    - flex-2.5.35
    - hwloc 1.10.1
    - libccmio 2.6.1
    - mesquite 2.1.2
    - metis 5.1.0
    - openmpi 1.8.8
    - Paraview 4.4.0
    - parmetis 4.0.3
    - ParMGridGen 1.0
    - PyFoam 0.6.4
    - qt 4.8.6
    - scotch 6.0.4
    - swak4Foam 0.4.0


3 Compatibility
===============

  Upstream features from the OpenFOAM® code base are merged into
  foam-extend on regular basis. The interface format of foam-extend-4.0
  is largely compatible to foam-extend-3.2, to OpenFOAM-1.6-ext and
  OpenFOAM-1.7.x. In some cases, the differences are caused by bug fixes
  and algorithmic improvements, considered more important than
  inter-operability.


4 Main differentiators between foam-extend and OpenFOAM
=======================================================

  A large number of features have been lost within the release of
  OpenFOAM since version 1.3, the code base has shrunk by more than 40%.
  While we understand the lack of technical ability of supporting
  advanced CFD features, we feel that existing features and specifically
  large-scale contributions should remain active and developed
  further. Below is a list of main features of foam-extend which are
  lacking, lost, deactivated or unusable in ESI releases:

  * Turbomachinery features, including General Grid Interface (GGI),
    partial overlap GGI, cyclic GGI, with improvements in parallel
    scaling.  First release of a mixing plane stage interface

  * Dynamic mesh with topological changes Sliding interfaces, mesh
    layering, attach-detach boundaries etc.  In foam-extend, full
    parallel support for topological changes is released for the first
    time

  * Finite Element Method with support for polyhedral meshes This is
    mainly used in mesh deformation and over the last 15 years it has
    proven vastly superior to all other dynamic mesh methods.

  * Advanced mesh deformation technology Including tet FEM mesh
    deformation, Radial Basis Function (RBF) mesh deformation,
    tetrahedral remeshing dynamic mesh support and solid body motion
    functions.  All of the above include parallelisation support

  * Library of dynamic meshes with topological changes with full second
    order FVM discretisation support on moving meshes with topological
    changes

  * Internal combustion engine-specific dynamic mesh classes such as
    two-stroke engine and various forms of 4-stroke and multi-valve
    dynamic mesh classes

  * Finite Area Method providing support for FVM-like discretisation on
    a curved surface in 3-D, with examples of liquid film modeling

  * Block-coupled matrix support, allowing fully implicit multi-equation
    solution of NxN equation sets, with full parallelisation support.
    First release of a block-AMG linear equation solver

  * Fully implicit conjugate-coupled solution framework, allowing
    implicit solution fo multiple equations over multiple meshes, with
    parallelism

  * Proper Orthogonal Decomposition data analysis tools, with
    applications to FOAM field classes

  * Equation reader classes and tutorials

  * Multi-solver solution framework, allowing multiple field models to
    be solved in a coupled manner

  * A major contribution is solid mechanics modelling, including linear
    and non-linear materials, contact, self-contact and friction, with
    updated Lagrangian or absolute Lagrangian formulation.  Solution of
    damage models and crack propagation in complex materials via
    topological changes

  * CUDA solver release, provided in full source and as an example of
    coupling external linear equation solvers with FOAM

  * Library-level support for Immersed Boundary Method and Overset Mesh

  * Major improvements in accuracy and stability of FVM discretisation
    with options on convection and diffusion discretisation, deferred
    correction or explicit schemes

  * Algebraic multigrid solver framework

  * 253 tutorials with automated run scripts

  * Automatic test harness

  * Approximately 6000 bug fixes in fundamental level libraries and
    discretisation techniques


5 New features in foam-extend-4.0, since foam-extend-3.2
========================================================

  The list of features is a result of the work of numerous
  contributors. The maintainers of foam-extend would formally like to
  thank them all.

  Get a full log of the updates by (either):
  ,----
  | user@machine> git log 4.0.. > commitLog
  `----
  ,----
  | user@machine> git log 4.0.. --oneline > commitLog
  `----
  ,----
  | user@machine> gitg 4.0..
  `----

  * Major new features:
    - Improved BlockLduMatrix and block-coupled p-U solver and
      associated tools
    - ILUCp and block ILUCp preconditioners
    - Added MRF and porous media handling to the block-coupled solver
    - Change of generic turbulence modelling interface: no U required
    - Updated version of block-coupled turbulence models
    - Major improvements in immersed boundary method library: improved
      performance and parallel scaling.  Completed supporft for moving
      deforming immersed boundary
    - Adopted vanilla OpenFOAM solver control format (solutionControl
      class)
    - Implicit adjoint convection operator
    - Improved GGI interpolation and cutting, with better parallel
      scaling
    - Global GGI search option for parallel cases
    - GGI and mixing planes with jump condition for the rothalpy
      equation
    - Improved 6-DOF solver, with new handling of constraints
    - Fully integrated real gas library
    - Updated viscoelastoplastic models
    - New steady-state universal flow solver, handling incompressible
      and compressible flows within the same framework
    - Time consistent incompressible solvers update
    - Added decaying turbulence inlet boundary condition by Kornev
    - New gradient limiter implementation
    - Full gradient cacheing capability
    - Removed fluxRequired from solution dictionaries
    - Consistent notation of 1/aP
    - Dynamic mesh improvements: prescribed motion functions

  * Software
    - New handling of lnInclude directories: avoid file copying on MS
      Windows
    - Changes to controlDict and options on MS Windows
    - Consistency in formatting of compression options
    - Raspberry Pi port

  * Installation:
    - Compilation improvements
    - Updated packages versions and compilation in ThirdParty
    - Changed compilation options for Infiniband: new versions of MPI
    - Added support for mvapich2-2.2
    - Updated compilation for latest version of XCode for Mac OSX
    - Updates for MS Windows build

  * Solvers:
    - Updated time consistent incompressible solvers (channelFoam,
      icoFoam, nonNewtonianIcoFoam, pimpleDyMFoam, pimpleFoam,
      simpleFoam, simpleSRFFoam)
    - Steady universal (compressible and incompressible) flow solver
      (steadyUniversalFoam)
    - Block-coupled p-U solver improvements (MRFPorousFoam and
      pUCoupledFoam)
    - Improved steadyCompressibleMRFFoam

  * New tutorials:
    - Transient real fluid examples
    - Universal steady-state MRF examples
    - Additional coupled CHT example
    - Additional immersed boundary example
    - Additional steady-state MRF and GGI example

  * Bug fixes: see git log for details


6 Recent successful compilations and tests
==========================================

  * Ubuntu 16.04 LTS


7 Reporting bugs
================

  To report bugs, please use the bugtracker at
  [http://sourceforge.net/p/foam-extend/tickets/]


8 How to contribute
===================

  All your contributions are highly welcome: New solvers, utilities and
  models; bug fixes; documentation. The many ways of contributing and
  the contribution process are described in detail at:
  [http://sourceforge.net/p/foam-extend/wiki/HowToContribute/]


9 List of Contributors:
=======================

  See file ListOfContributors