The idea of OOFEM is to provide to the FEM analyst highly modular, easily extensible and robust enviroment. The OOFEM is built on the top of OOFEMlib - the general purpose FE kernel.
Here is a list of OOFEMlib highlights:
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object oriented architecture
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modular and extensible FEM kernel (OOFEMlib) fully extensible - The kernel is extensible in any "direction". The possibility of adding new element type, new material model with any type and number of internal history parameters, new boundary condition, new numerical algorithm or new analysis module is matter of course.
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independent problem formulation, numerical solution and data storage - The kernel provides the independent abstractions for analysis, general numerical method and data storage (sparse matrices). The component mapping concept allows to formulate problem and numerical method independently and allows to use any suitable numerical method for problem solution without changes. This concept is further enhanced by abstract sparse matrix interface, allowing to formulate numerical method independently on sparse matrix implementation.
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full restart support - The kernel supports full restart from any previously saved state.
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support for parallel processing (message passing) - General classes for efficient inter domain communication are provided built over the abstract general layer for message passing libraries, which is available on many parallel platforms (massively parallel computers, shared memory systems and workstation clusters) .
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adaptive analysis support - multiple domain concept, fast spatial localization algorithms based on tree techniques are available.
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includes enhanced support for structural analysis.
The OOFEM code, built on the top of OOFEMlib, consist of different modules. Currently, only structural analysis module is under development. The OOFEM features include:
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Structural Mechanics module
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many analysis procedures - linear statics, linear dynamics (eigen value analysis, direct integration methods - implicit and explicit), nonlinear statics (robust CALM solver), nonlinear dynamics (explicit, parallel version)
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large element and material libraries - see Element Library Manual and Material Model Library Manual
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advanced modeling features - slave DOFs, rigid arms, local coordinate systems and many more
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parallel analysis - explicit nonlinear dynamics utilizing the Domain Decomposition Method, pilot implementation of implicit solver (FETI)
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profile optimization (Sloan)
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X-Windows postprocessing
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parallel processing - utilizes the Domain Decomposition Method for dramatic performance scalability on various parallel architectures (explicit dynamics)
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portability (C++)
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comparable computational performance
The OOFEM www-page (http://oofem.org ) is the source of up-to-date information and documentation.