Run a Single Simulation

Letโ€™s begin by running a single OpenFOAM simulation using the occDrivAerStaticMesh case. All the required input files are already prepared, as outlined in the previous section.

Code Overview

The Python code required to run a OpenFOAM simulation using the Inductiva API follows a consistent structure. We adapted it for this specific use case, as shown below.

import inductiva

# Allocate cloud machine on Google Cloud Platform
cloud_machine = inductiva.resources.MachineGroup( \
    provider="GCP",
    machine_type="c3d-highcpu-180",
    data_disk_gb=100,
    spot=True)

# Initialize OpenFOAM stack
openfoam = inductiva.simulators.OpenFOAM(
    version="2412",
    distribution="esi"
    )

task = openfoam.run( \
    input_dir="/Path/to/openfoam-occDrivAerStaticMesh",
    shell_script="./Allrun",
    on=cloud_machine)

# Wait for the simulation to finish and download the results
task.wait()
cloud_machine.terminate()

task.download_outputs()

task.print_summary()

When the simulation is complete, we terminate the machine, download the results and print a summary of the simulation as shown.

inductiva tasks info 6j356wymfn7t614fncoff2dnf
Task status: Success

Timeline:
    Waiting for Input         at 09/07, 09:25:15      1933.174 s
    In Queue                  at 09/07, 09:57:28      4.302 s
    Preparing to Compute      at 09/07, 09:57:32      53.658 s
    In Progress               at 09/07, 09:58:26      51074.226 s
        โ””> 51074.226 s        bash Allrun
    Finalizing                at 10/07, 00:09:40      23.903 s
    Success                   at 10/07, 00:10:04

Data:
    Size of zipped output:    5.51 GB
    Size of unzipped output:  10.72 GB
    Number of output files:   3276

Total estimated cost (US$): 24.32 US$
    Estimated computation cost (US$): 24.31 US$
    Task orchestration fee (US$): 0.010 US$

Note: A per-run orchestration fee (0.010 US$) applies to tasks run from 01 Dec 2025, in addition to the computation costs.
Learn more about costs at: https://inductiva.ai/guides/basics/how-much-does-it-cost

As you can see in the โ€œIn Progressโ€ line, the part of the timeline that represents the actual execution of the simulation, the core computation time of this simulation was approximately 14 hours and 13 minutes.

Next, weโ€™ll show you how to scale this same simulation across multiple machines and significantly reduce simulation time - by up to 1.8x!

Stay tuned!