Open Source Tools For Fluid Dynamics

Open source software tools are widely used both in academia and industry as alternatives or supplement to commercial closed source software. For academia, open source is in line with its wider ethos of free and open knowledge sharing and comprises a key element to ensure reproducibility of research results. For industries, open source software can significantly reduce costs of using, maintaining and developing software as well as increase flexibility and prevent vendor lock in. For both industry and academia, open source software provides a platform for common and shared research and development, pooling resources and fostering collaboration between the two. Within fluid dynamics there exists a myriad of open source tools for both experimental and numerical work. The perhaps best example is the OpenFOAM toolbox for computational fluid dynamics simulations, which is used by thousands of researchers and engineers all over the world. In this seminar we will see examples of specific usages of open source software in industry and academia. Besides from the specific examples, presenters have been asked to reflect on what the availability of open source solutions means for their specific domain of work.