A Semi-Automatic Approach Based on the Method of Manufactured Solutions to Assess the Convergence Order in OpenFOAM

Abstract

Code verification is an intricate and crucial part of code developed. Due to the nature of the partial differential equations being solved, an analytical solution might not exit. To prove that the code is solving the correct equations, the method of manufactured solutions (MMS) is the go to approach. In this method we create a forcing term to drive the solution to a predetermined function.
 By performing a mesh refinement study, we can verify if the code is solving correctly the governing equations. In this work, we present the procedure of MMS as well as a tool developed in an open-source software for symbolic computation of the forcing term, appropriate boundary conditions and error norm computation withing the OpenFOAM® framework.