Compare Elmer against other free FEM software

General discussion about Elmer
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k.ladutenko
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Compare Elmer against other free FEM software

Post by k.ladutenko »

Dear Elmer users,

I would like to provide a good comparison of available FEM software for newcomers willing to become a FEM pro. There is a GitHub page https://github.com/kostyfisik/FEA-compare and a HTML copy of the comparison table in its current revision https://cdn.rawgit.com/kostyfisik/FEA-c ... table.html with fixed first column and row for ease of exploration. As far as to provide a good feature review of any FEM software you need to master it first, this way I would like to ask any Elmer enthusiast to provide such a profile.

Could anyone provide such a profile for Elmer software? Fill free to provide any data for the same feature as listed or you can provide any new features, that can be important for such a comparison. The preferred way to contribute is a GitHub pull request with a profile (this way it should be easy to combine profiles from several users). The blank profile is in the file https://github.com/kostyfisik/FEA-compa ... n-keys.txt , filled examples are in https://github.com/kostyfisik/FEA-compa ... r/profiles . Python script to generate a table using profiles is also provided. If any questions feel free to e-mail me to k.ladutenko@metalab.ifmo.ru

Best regards,
Konstantin Ladutenko
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Re: Compare Elmer against other free FEM software

Post by annier »

Hi Konstantin,
This is indeed a great work for the learners of FEM like us. I guess Peter or other members of Elmer Team will fill up the form.


Yours Sincerely,
Anil Kunwar
Anil Kunwar
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Silesian University of Technology, Gliwice
raback
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Re: Compare Elmer against other free FEM software

Post by raback »

Hi

I created a tentative list of features which is now available as a pull request on GitHub.

-Peter
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Re: Compare Elmer against other free FEM software

Post by annier »

Hi Peter and Konstantin,
We are very grateful to you for making us learn Elmer in a more comparative way.

Yours Sincerely,
Anil Kunwar
Anil Kunwar
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Silesian University of Technology, Gliwice
k.ladutenko
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Re: Compare Elmer against other free FEM software

Post by k.ladutenko »

Dear all, Thank you for your contribution, pull request is in master branch at GitHub now. I`ve made a small change and moved full name of Elmer to a separate key field. Updated HTML link with comparison table: https://cdn.rawgit.com/kostyfisik/FEA-c ... table.html

Could you suggest any other FEA software that should be added to the comparison? Do not hesitate to contribute some new profile at GitHub if it worth being compared :)
raback
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Re: Compare Elmer against other free FEM software

Post by raback »

Hi

Maybe GetDP and NgSolve could be included.

The challenge with lists is that it is difficult to come up with a resolution fine enough time make the final call on choosing the software. However, it is often a very good help for making the short-list. A github hosted list may also have better chances if being up-to-date. So very good effort!

The niche where I find Elmer to be quite strong is that we try to be a production code and a development environment at the same time. The hope is that any working case that is out there will never be broken by new features. For this purpose the existing physical models and 400+ consistency tests are essential. There are probably more complete numerical FEM libraries but they might not be as suited for production. On the other hand Elmer is still fully extendable so you won't hit the wall even though writing your own equation might not be as neat as with some of the C++ based implementations.

-Peter
mzenker
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Re: Compare Elmer against other free FEM software

Post by mzenker »

Hi,

how about CalculiX and Salomé + Code_Aster / Code_Saturne?
Do you plan to include all the commercials also? Some of those are ANSYS, NASTRAN, CFD-ACE+, COSMOSWORKS,...

Matthias
k.ladutenko
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Re: Compare Elmer against other free FEM software

Post by k.ladutenko »

Hi,

1) GetDP - I wrote a letter to Prof. Christophe Geuzaine with a request few day ago, still no answer. If you can promote this comparison to him some other way it would be fine. If no answer I will post my request to GetDP mail-list a little bit later.

2) I`ve got a reply from Code_Aster, that they will think about filling the table, still no contribution at the moment. I will try to give a reminder a little bit later.

3) Other profiles are welcome too, including commercial codes. I have included possible list to GitHub readme page. Probably I will try to request commercial software for a profile as soon as I try with most of open-sourced codes. In general, IMHO open sourced codes have more responsive communities. Still if someone would like to provide a profile for a commercial code - welcome!

4) As for me, it looks to be quite natural for any serious simulation software to have a test suite. E.g. Deal II has more than 3500 tests included, so I put it into the table too.

5) I hope it should be quite easy to keep this comparison being updated with the help of FEM community using GitHub. The best case if any maintainer of open-source FEM software considers "adding updates to the table" to his checklist for each major release.

The updated table: https://cdn.rawgit.com/kostyfisik/FEA-c ... table.html

Best regards, Kostya
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