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Open Source Finite Element Codes on the Blade Center
- About OpenFOAM
- About Elmer
Commercial finite element packages have been under development for
several decades. As such they are versatile, convenient and well-tested.
Over the past decade, several open source finite element codes have
matured enough to be worthy of comparison.
Open source codes have the advantage that their use is not dependent on
purchase of a license. So you don't have to wait in line for the few
licenses to be available to you. Also you can continue to use them if
you happen to work for a different institution or yourself. Also, access to
the source code can sometimes facilitate research in exploring
different cases.
- About OpenFOAM
OpenFOAM is "open source" and versatile. It is used for
example by Boeing engineers who suggested to us.
OpenFOAM is developed by the OpenCFD corporation, founded in
2004. Standard solvers include 'basic' CFD, incompressible flows,
compressible flows, combustion, electromagnetics, and solid dynamics.
Partitioning routines and choices of linear algebra solvers are
provided.
One use is for liquid solid interactions.
A program called paraview provides visualization.
For an introduction to using
OpenFOAM on the blade center, please see Using OpenFOAM
- About Elmer
Elmer is general purpose finite element software, developed since 1995
by the Finnish government corporation CSC (not the same as
the U.S. corporation of the same name). Some application areas are analysis of
stresses and strains in solid objects, temperature, fluid flow, and
radation problems. Elmer uses standard numeric libraries such as
the metis partitioner and numerical linear algebra tools such
as lapack, arpack, the umf package for solution of sparse systems
of equations, and also allows sparse iterative solution.
Elmer can be run in parallel. Ansys input files can
be used. For a simple example of user elmer and some links, please
see Using Elmer
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