Elmer track in PRACE Spring School, 15-17 April 2014, Linz

Courses, user meetings, seminars etc.
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raback
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Elmer track in PRACE Spring School, 15-17 April 2014, Linz

Post by raback »

Hi All,

For current and future Elmer users in Central Europa there is now a possibility to participate in Elmer tutorial that is part of a PRACE Spring School. The course will take place in Castle of Hagenberg, near Linz, Austria, in 15-17 of April, 2014.

For more details and registration see,
http://events.prace-ri.eu/conferenceDis ... confId=223

Best regards,
Peter
mzenker
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Re: Elmer track in PRACE Spring School, 15-17 April 2014, Linz

Post by mzenker »

Hi,

some topics I would be interested in are

* the inner workings of ElmerSolver, implemented functionality (iteration methods, preconditioning, ...)
* advanced strategies: obtain convergence, improve solution stability and speed
* how to write one's own PDE solver

Is there a chance that some of these will be covered in the seminar in Linz?

Matthias
raback
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Re: Elmer track in PRACE Spring School, 15-17 April 2014, Linz

Post by raback »

Hi Matthias

The time is limited and probably we cannot go too deep on those topics. However, in discussions before and after lectures, and during coffee breaks one can go deeper in the details.

BR, Peter
mzenker
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Re: Elmer track in PRACE Spring School, 15-17 April 2014, Linz

Post by mzenker »

Hi Peter,

what I understand from the description of the sessions is that this is merely a course on basic and moderately advanced use of Elmer.
After the course, attendees will be able to run simulations with Elmer, but will not necessarily know what they are doing unless they have a solid knowledge about finite elements already before the course.
Nowaday's FEM software makes it possible to run a simulation without caring about the underlying mathematics at all. This is a good thing for simple cases, but at a certain point, knowledge about the things "under the hood" becomes important.
So I wonder if there is a course for people (like me) who know in principle how to use the software, but want to know more on the underlying basics and solution methods - in fact, a structured and extensive lecture about the contents of the chapters 1,4 and 6 of the solver manual would be most interesting. This can obviously not be done in a coffee break...
Do you know of a course or lecture series where this kind of matter is covered?

Matthias
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Re: Elmer track in PRACE Spring School, 15-17 April 2014, Linz

Post by raback »

Hi Matthias

No, this is not a course of such depth. We will probably have a longer course later in spring in Finland, but still it might leave some questions open. It would take weeks to cover all aspects of Elmer properly. We should perhaps make a better effort to point out some background material that underlies some of the choices in Elmer in order not to need to prepare material for everything. For instance, time-integration is done using standard methods. The challenge is that in coding related issues there is no such literature to rely on.

-Peter
mzenker
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Re: Elmer track in PRACE Spring School, 15-17 April 2014, Linz

Post by mzenker »

Hi Peter,

a reference list would indeed help, including some textbooks (or chapters thereof) covering the basics for those who so far just use the software without really knowing how FEM works. The problem is that almost all books and courses on FEM assume solid knowledge in mechanics. Do you know of a textbook which does "FEM for non-mechanicians"?

Matthias
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Re: Elmer track in PRACE Spring School, 15-17 April 2014, Linz

Post by raback »

Hi

Personally I found the book "Applied Computational Fluid Dynamics Techniques: An Introduction Based on Finite Element Methods" by Rainald Löhner quite nice if interested in the concepts related to FEM coding. Unfortunately Elmer philosophy may sometimes differ a little but the foundations are the same.

-Peter
mzenker
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Re: Elmer track in PRACE Spring School, 15-17 April 2014, Linz

Post by mzenker »

This looks interesting indeed, thank you for the hint!

Matthias
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