Install openfast with Homebrew

Project links

• Homepage
• Repository

Commands and aliases

• openfast

Project history

OpenFAST was established in 2017 from FAST v8 by researchers at the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory with support from the U.S. Department of Energy Wind Energy Technologies Office. The project turned FAST's coupled turbine simulation capability into a more open community model and development platform.

The documentation describes FAST v8 as a computer-aided engineering tool for coupled dynamic response of wind turbines. OpenFAST kept that role while organizing the codebase as a framework, or glue code, around physics modules for land-based, fixed-bottom offshore, and floating offshore turbine analysis.

Adoption history

The U.S. Department of Energy's OSTI software record describes OpenFAST and FAST.Farm as community models developed and used by research laboratories, academia, and industry. That framing is important: OpenFAST is not just a desktop simulator, but a reference code used to compare models, publish research, and support wind-energy engineering studies.

FAST.Farm extends OpenFAST to multi-turbine wind farms, using OpenFAST models for individual turbines while capturing wind-farm power performance, structural loads, wake advection, meandering, and merging. That companion tool broadened the OpenFAST ecosystem from single-turbine loads analysis to wind-farm-scale engineering simulation.

How it is used

Engineers and researchers run the `openfast` executable with turbine model input files to predict loads, motion, controls behavior, and power response under defined wind and sea states. Typical uses include design-load analysis, offshore floating platform studies, controller development, model validation, and coupling with higher-level workflows.

Because OpenFAST combines multiple physics domains, packaging matters in a practical way: users need a reproducible command-line binary and libraries that match published examples, regression tests, and research workflows. Homebrew packaging makes that scientific code easier to install on macOS workstations without rebuilding the Fortran/C++ stack by hand.

Why package nerds care

OpenFAST is package-nerd significant because it puts a serious government-lab engineering code into ordinary package-manager channels. Its value is not a slick CLI surface; it is reproducible access to a reference simulation engine whose input formats, modules, and companion tools form part of the wind-energy research commons.

The project also shows the packaging tension of scientific software: the executable looks simple, but the credibility lives in versioned models, documentation, tests, numerical behavior, and compatibility with surrounding tools such as FAST.Farm.

Timeline

• FAST v8: served as the starting codebase for OpenFAST and provided coupled aero-hydro-servo-elastic wind-turbine simulation.
• 2017: OpenFAST was established from FAST v8 by NREL researchers with DOE-WETO support.
• OpenFAST ecosystem: FAST.Farm extended OpenFAST-based simulation to multi-turbine wind-farm studies.

Related projects

• FAST.Farm is the most direct companion project, extending OpenFAST simulations from individual turbines to wind farms. ROSCO, the reference open-source controller, is a related wind-energy tool that integrates with OpenFAST-style control-system workflows.

Sources

• https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/openfast
• https://github.com/OpenFAST/openfast/
• https://openfast.readthedocs.io/
• https://openfast.readthedocs.io/en/dev/source/user/fast_to_openfast.html
• https://www.nlr.gov/wind/nwtc/fast
• https://www.nlr.gov/wind/nwtc/openfast
• https://www.osti.gov/biblio/code-57283