A Finite Element
Research System
Developed by
Zhi-Qiang Feng
Université de Technologie de Belfort-Montbéliard, 90010 Belfort, France
Here we
present some developments on numerical modelling with the finite element method
including user interfaces: the pre and post processors. The programming
techniques are based on the advanced object-oriented programming with C++,
which makes a computing program more compact, portable and easy to maintain and
facilitates further developments due to the open architecture of the program.
Preprocessor
FER/Mesh 1.0 is under
development, and can be used to build model geometries (at the moment just 2D
model) and to generate structured or unstructured mesh. By using the OOP (Object-Oriented
Programming) technique, the managing of objects (keypoint, straight line, arc,
Bezier and Spline line, circle, rectangle and polygons etc.) is very efficient
and clear.
FER/PrePost 1.0
is a pre/post processor for finite element analysis designed specially for
people who work mainly in developing computational programs. It imports just
the nodes and elements from any CAD software, and the operations are very easy
to define the analysis models, to review and to interpret the results quickly
and efficiently.
Postprocessor
FER/View3.0 is a general postprocessor of
finite element analysis. It is written in C++ using the OOP technique and
OpenGL graphical support. A PC version and a UNIX version on SGI workstation
have been developed with the same class system and graphical algorithms. The
two versions have almost the same capabilities. (Download a PC demo version)
Paper
presented at the World Congress on Comutational
Mechanics (WCCM V) : 
New ! FER/View
4.0 is under development (open the pdf
file to see some mesh models viewed by the release 4.0 of FER/View).
User
interface of PC version (Windows 95/98/NT)
User interface of UNIX version (tested on SGI OCTANE
and O2 workstations)
Scientific Computing with Finite Element Method
FER/Drop, a computational fluid dynamics program used for modelling of droplet spreading with heat transfer during the thermal plasma spray process.
FER/Thermal, a heat transfer analysis
program that is suitable not only for classic thermal analysis, but also for
thermal analysis with moving heat flux.
FER/Solid, a solid mechanics analysis
program (under development) for static linear and non-linear modelling of
structures.
FER/Contact, a FEA (Finite
Element Analysis) software in which the frictional contact problem between 2D
or 3D deformable bodies undergoing large deformation can be solved.
FER/Impact , a FEA
software (under development) for analysis of impact problems.
FER/Modal, a FEA software
(under development) for modal analysis to determine the natural frequencies and
mode shapes of a structure or a machine component.
FER/Dyna, a FEA software (under
development) devoted to rapid dynamics modelling, based on the explicit scheme
for time stepping integration.
FER/Mech, a complete package
(including pre/post processor and solver) for 2D and 3D mechanism simulation.
It is very easy to design the model geometry, to input the physical parameters,
to apply the boundary conditions, to run the analysis and to visualize the
results within a very friendly GUI - Graphical User Interface ...
FER/SubDomain, a FEA software
(under development) devoted to parallel computing (Collaborator: Jean Michel
Cros). It is composed of several functional modules: the finite element solver
associated with the domain decomposition method, the pre and post processors
and domain partitioner METIS.
