🏄‍♂️ FlowBoost — Multi-objective Bayesian optimization for OpenFOAM

FlowBoost is a highly configurable and extensible library for handling and optimizing OpenFOAM CFD simulations. It provides ready bindings for state-of-the-art Bayesian optimization using Meta's Ax, powered by PyTorch, and simple interfaces for using any other optimization library.

Features

• Easy API syntax (see examples/)
• Ready bindings for Meta's Ax (Adaptive Experimentation Platform)
  • Multi-objective, high-dimensional Bayesian optimization
  • SAASBO, GPU acceleration
• Fully hands-off cluster-native job management
• Simple interfaces for OpenFOAM cases (flowboost.Case)
• Use any optimization backend by implementing a few interfaces

Examples

The examples/ directory contains code examples for simplified real-world scenarios:

1. aerofoilNACA0012Steady: parameter optimization for a NACA 0012 aerofoil steady-state simulation
2. pitzDaily: backward-facing step optimization using local Docker execution and the Pandas data backend

By default, FlowBoost uses Ax's Service API as its optimization backend. In practice, any optimizer can be used, as long as it conforms to the abstract flowboost.optimizer.Backend base class, which the backend interfaces in flowboost.optimizer.interfaces implement.

OpenFOAM case abstraction

Working with OpenFOAM cases is performed through the flowboost.Case abstraction, which provides a high-level API for OpenFOAM case-data and configuration access. The Case abstraction can be used as-is outside of optimization workflows:

from flowboost import Case

# Clone tutorial to current working directory (or a specified dir)
tutorial_case = Case.from_tutorial("fluid/aerofoilNACA0012Steady")

# Dictionary read/write access
control_dict = tutorial_case.dictionary("system/controlDict")
control_dict.entry("writeInterval").set("5000")

# Access data in an evaluated case
case = Case("my/case/path")
df = case.data.simple_function_object_reader("forceCoeffsCompressible")

Installation

FlowBoost requires Python 3.10 or later.

It is highly recommended that you use a virtual environment ("venv") when using FlowBoost. For this, uv is the recommended choice, but virtualenv, Poetry, and others will work just fine, too.

To set up a virtual environment using uv:

mkdir my-research-dir
cd my-research-dir

uv sync --python=3.13 # or your desired Python version (>=3.10)
uv add flowboost # add FlowBoost to the uv-managed venv as a dependency

Next, either source the environment manually using source .venv/bin/activate, or run your script using uv run my_experiment.py.

uv (recommended)

To add FlowBoost to an existing Python environment:

uv add flowboost

pip

pip install flowboost

CPU compatibility

In order to use the standard polars package, your CPU should support AVX2 instructions (and other SIMD instructions). These are typically available in Intel Broadwell/4000-series and later, and all AMD Zen-based CPUs.

If your CPU is from 2012 or earlier, you will most likely receive an illegal instruction error. This can be solved by installing the lts-cpu extra:

uv add flowboost[lts-cpu]
# or: pip install flowboost[lts-cpu]

This installs polars-lts-cpu, which is functionally identical but not as performant.

OpenFOAM

FlowBoost uses OpenFOAM in two ways:

1. Case setup uses CLI tools like foamDictionary and foamCloneCase on the host machine.
2. Simulations run wherever the Manager sends them: locally (Local, DockerLocal) or on a cluster (SGE, Slurm).

The host always needs access to OpenFOAM CLI tools for case setup, even when simulations run elsewhere. On Linux, a native install works. On macOS and Windows, FlowBoost provides these tools transparently through Docker.

• Linux: native OpenFOAM or Docker
• macOS: Docker (OrbStack recommended, Docker Desktop also works)
• Windows: Docker (Docker Desktop). Not tested on Windows.

On first run in Docker mode, FlowBoost builds the flowboost/openfoam:13 image from the bundled Dockerfile. This is a one-time operation. To force a specific mode, set FLOWBOOST_FOAM_MODE to native or docker. To use a custom image, set FLOWBOOST_FOAM_IMAGE.

FlowBoost uses the openfoam.org lineage (not the ESI/openfoam.com fork) and has been tested with versions 11 and 13. The bundled Dockerfile targets OpenFOAM 13 on Ubuntu 24.04. Each OpenFOAM release is tied to a specific Ubuntu LTS, so Dockerfiles are per-version by design.

Using Docker mode

In Docker mode, CLI tools like foamDictionary run inside a persistent container. This is automatic: Case, Dictionary, and other abstractions work the same way regardless of the mode (native, Docker).

When running multiple OpenFOAM commands (e.g. reading dictionaries across many cases), use the container() context manager to keep a single container alive for the entire block:

from flowboost import Case, foam_runtime

workdir = Path("flowboost_data")

with foam_runtime().container(workdir):
    for case_dir in sorted(workdir.glob("case_*")):
        case = Case(case_dir)
        k = case.dictionary("0/k").entry("boundaryField/inlet/value").value
        # All foamDictionary calls reuse the same container

Without container(), FlowBoost auto-mounts paths as needed, which may restart the container when new paths are encountered. Pre-mounting a parent directory (like the workdir above) avoids this.

To run simulations locally in Docker, use the DockerLocal manager:

from flowboost import Manager

manager = Manager.create(scheduler="dockerlocal", wdir=data_dir, job_limit=2)

Each submitted case gets its own detached container with the case directory bind-mounted. See the pitzDaily example for a complete Docker-based workflow.

GPU acceleration

If your environment has a CUDA-compatible NVIDIA GPU, verify you have a recent CUDA Toolkit release. Otherwise, GPU acceleration for PyTorch will not be available. This is especially critical if you are using SAASBO for high-dimensional optimization tasks (≥20 dimensions).

nvcc -V

# Verify CUDA availability
python3 -c "import torch; print(torch.cuda.is_available())"

Development

See CONTRIBUTING.md for setup, tooling, and testing guidance.

Acknowledgments

The base functionality for FlowBoost was created as part of a mechanical engineering master's thesis at Aalto University, funded by Wärtsilä. Wärtsilä designs and manufactures marine combustion engines and energy solutions in Vaasa, Finland.