About OOFEM

OOFEM has been under continuous development since 1997. The project started in 1993 as part of Bořek Patzák's Ph.D. thesis on computational modeling of concrete structures. The initial source of inspiration was the FEM_Object program written by T. Zimmermann and Y. Dubois-Pelerin.

In 2001, the project was officially released under an open-source license, and since then, many developers and users around the world have joined the OOFEM community and contributed to its development.

The program has primarily been developed at:

(1997–present) Czech Technical University in Prague, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Department of Mechanics
(2010–2019) Chalmers University of Technology, Department of Applied Mechanics, Division of Material and Computational Mechanics

License

GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL)

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

The full text of the GNU Lesser General Public License, version 2.1 is available online at GNU.org and is also included in the distribution.

Referencing OOFEM

If you use OOFEM—especially if you use it to accomplish real work or research—we would like very much to hear from you. A short letter or email describing how you use OOFEM means a lot to us, and knowing who uses the program helps us justify spending time on improvements.

When referencing OOFEM in a publication, please cite at least one of the following papers:

B. Patzák. OOFEM - an object-oriented simulation tool for advanced modeling of materials and structures. Acta Polytechnica, 52(6):59--66, 2012.
B. Patzák and D. Rypl. Object-oriented, parallel finite element framework with dynamic load balancing. Advances in Engineering Software, 47(1):35--50, 2012.
B. Patzák and Z. Bittnar. Design of object oriented finite element code. Advances in Engineering Software, 32(10--11):759--767, 2001.

In addition, you can also cite the OOFEM web pages:

B. Patzák, OOFEM project home page. http://www.oofem.org, 2000.

Direct Citation & DOI

OOFEM releases are archived on Zenodo and have a direct DOI, making them directly citable in your research:

Credits & Contributors

The people listed below have made significant contributions to OOFEM by working long and hard to make quality software for the rest of the world to use.

Bořek Patzák — OOFEM Architect, Project Leader, coding, documentation, testing
Zdeněk Bittnar — Special thanks for valuable comments on functionality and documentation
Milan Jirásek — Sloan renumbering, stimulating discussions
Martin Horák — OOFEM lieutenant, multi-physics problems, contact algorithms, geometrically non-linear formulations
Vít Šmilauer — Homogenization, interface to CEMHYD3D, damage model for orthotropic materials
Václav Šmilauer — Python bindings, GitHub integration, Eigen support
Petr Havlásek — Advanced implementation of B3 material model based on solidification theory
Filip Kolařík — P2P1 Taylor Hood element
Mikael Öhman — Developing multiscale models and models for surface tension driven free surface flows
Jim Brouzoulis — Modeling delaminations and cracks using XFEM in composite shells
Carl Sandström — Computational homogenization for coupling Stokes' flow with Darcy flow
Martin Fagerström — Implementation of cohesive zone models for modeling of delamination in composites
Erik Svenning — Modeling of cracks and fracture using XFEM
Peter Grassl — truss2d improvements, damage-plastic model for concrete (concreteDPM)
Jose E. Roman & Francisco Alvaro — Interface to SLEPc
Petr Bittnar — Valuable help with CSS and web design
Simon Rolshoven — Drucker Prager plasticity model
Ladislav Svoboda — Hanging nodes, cct3d, and tr_shell01 elements
Jaroslav Kruis — Implementation of various elements
Jiří Němeček — Microplane model implementation
Daniel Rypl — Subdivision in 3D, cooperation on IGA module
Richard Vondráček — Implementation of Direct Sparse Solver
Růžena Chamrová — Implementation of XFEM support
Mathieu Charlebois — Orthotropic elastoplastic model with isotropic damage

Acknowledgments & Funding

The development of OOFEM has been partially funded and supported by:

Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic, contracts No. MSM 210000003 and MSM 6840770003: "The Development of Algorithms of Computational Mechanics and their Application in Engineering".
TailorCrete project, 7th EU FWP (Seventh EU Framework Programme).
Grant Agency of the Czech Republic — Projects No.: 13-23584S, 103/97/P106, 103/97/K003, 103/04/1394, 103/06/1845, 103/09/2009, and P105/10/1402.
CEC Brussels, Contract No. PL 964440.
LMAT (www.lmat-uk.com) — Improved composite analysis support.

How to Contribute

"Ask not what OOFEM can do for you, ask what you can do for OOFEM!"

There are a number of ways that you can contribute to help make OOFEM a better FEM system:

Tell us about your work: If you use OOFEM to accomplish real work, an official letter from your company or institution with a short description of the application helps us significantly when asking for further funding support.
Write and share code: Perhaps the most important way to contribute is to write high-quality code to extend or improve functionality. If you have written a useful class or module, please send it to our project email so it can be considered for inclusion in future releases.
Report bugs: If you are not a programmer, you can still help make OOFEM better and more reliable by reporting any bugs you find in the latest version or by offering suggestions for improvements.
Improve the documentation: Updates and contributions to the documentation, web pages, and the OOFEM WIKI are highly appreciated.
Share your work: Follow us on X @OOFEMorg and post about your simulations using the #OOFEM hashtag. We love to see what the community is building!

If you are interested in contributing, please send an email to: oofem@fsv.cvut.cz.

(since January, 2023)