Physical Solver Backends

Overview

OpenPisco can interface with several external and internal simulation tools.

All solver backends expose a common interface through OpenPisco.PhysicalSolvers.SolverBase, allowing optimization algorithms and criteria to remain independent of the underlying simulation software.

External Solvers

Code_Aster

Code_Aster 1 is an open-source finite-element solver developed by EDF. It supports a wide range of structural, thermal and multiphysics analyses.

Main features:

• Linear and nonlinear mechanics

• Thermal analyses

• Modal analyses

• Harmonic analyses

• Native field post-processing

The interface relies on:

• OpenPisco.ExternalTools.Aster.AsterInterface.AsterInterface

• Classes derived from OpenPisco.ExternalTools.Aster.AsterSolverBase.AsterSolverBase

FreeFem++

FreeFem++ 2 is a high-level finite-element software package based on the variational formulation of PDEs.

The OpenPisco interface provides:

• Automatic generation of FreeFem scripts

• Execution of simulations

• Retrieval of generated fields

Main classes:

• OpenPisco.ExternalTools.FreeFem.FreeFemInterface.FreeFemInterface

• OpenPisco.ExternalTools.FreeFem.FreeFemProblemWriter.FreeFemProblemWriter

Zset

Zset 3 is a finite-element software suite used for (non) linear mechanical analyses.

OpenPisco provides dedicated interfaces for supported mechanical analyses.

OpenFOAM

OpenFOAM 4 is an open-source finite-volume framework primarily dedicated to computational fluid dynamics (CFD).

It is currently used within OpenPisco for fluid flow analyses.

Internal Solver

Muscat

Muscat 5 is the native finite-element solver available within OpenPisco.

Unlike external solvers:

• No intermediate files need to be generated.

• No executable needs to be launched.

• Meshes are directly accessible through OpenPisco and Muscat structures.

The implementation is based on:

• OpenPisco.PhysicalSolvers.UnstructuredFEAGenericProblem

Supported Analyses

Table 2 Physical analysis supported w.r.t. tools

Analysis	Code_Aster	FreeFem++	Zset	Muscat	OpenFOAM
Linear elasticity	True	True	True	True	False
Thermoelasticity	True	False	False	False	False
Static buckling	True	False	False	False	False
Modal analysis	True	False	False	False	False
Harmonic analysis	True	False	False	False	False
Thermal analysis	True	False	False	True	False
Thermal eigenvalue analysis	True	False	False	False	False
Incompressible flow	False	False	False	False	True

1

https://www.code-aster.org/

2

https://freefem.org/

3

http://www.zset-software.com/

4

https://www.openfoam.com/

5

https://gitlab.com/drti/muscat