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Elmer FEM solver

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Elmer FEM solver
Stable release
9.0 / November 11, 2020; 5 years ago (2020-11-11)[1]
Written inFortran 90, C and C++
Operating systemLinux, Microsoft Windows, MacOS
Platformcommand line /GUI Qt v4/v5
TypeCAE
LicenseGNU General Public License
Websitewww.elmerfem.org
Repositorygithub.com/ElmerCSC/elmerfem

Elmer is a computational tool for multi-physics problems. It was developed by CSC[2] in collaboration with Finnish universities, research laboratories and industry. Elmer FEM solver is free and open-source software, subject to the requirements of the GNU General Public License (GPL), version 2 or any later.[3]

Elmer includes physical models of fluid dynamics, structural mechanics, electromagnetics, heat transfer and acoustics.[3] These are described by partial differential equations which Elmer solves by the Finite Element Method (FEM).

Elmer comprises several different parts:[4]

  • ElmerGrid – A mesh conversion tool, which can be used to convert differing mesh formats into Elmer-suitable meshes.
  • ElmerGUI – A graphical interface which can be used on an existing mesh to assign physical models. This generates a "case file" which describes the problem to be solved. It does not show the entire functionality of ElmerSolver in GUI.
  • ElmerSolver – The numerical solver which performs the finite element calculations, using the mesh and case files.
  • ElmerPost – A post-processing/visualisation module. (Development stopped in favour of other post-processing tools such as ParaView, VisIt, etc.)

The parts of Elmer software may be used independently. Whilst the main module is the ElmerSolver tool - which includes many sophisticated features for physical model solving - additional components are required to create a full workflow. For pre- and post-processing: other tools, such as Paraview, can be used to visualise the output.

The software runs on Unix and Windows platforms and it can be compiled on a large variety of compilers using the CMake building tool. The solver can also be used in a multi-host parallel mode on platforms that support MPI. Elmer's parallelisation capability is one of the strongest sides of this solver.

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See also

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References

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  1. ↑ "Elmer version 9.0 is published". elmerfem.org/forum. Retrieved 27 February 2021.
  2. ↑ "Elmer – CSC". CSC — IT Center for Science Ltd. Retrieved 2019-09-04.
  3. 1 2 Råback, Peter; Forsström, Pirjo-Leena; Lyly, Mikko; Gröhn, Matti (2007). "Elmer-finite element package for the solution of partial differential equations". EGEE User Forum.
  4. ↑ Råback, Peter; Malinen, Mika (2019). "Overview of Elmer" (PDF). CSC – IT Center for Science.
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