[shyamdsundar]

Hello All,

I am just curious if it is possible to develop a generic solver for hyperbolic and elliptic equations so that the same framework can be employed for a variety of applications from CFD, Electromagnetics, Structural, Thermal analysis etc. Can there be a convergence in numerical techniques applied for these wide range of problems?

Prof Jaime Peraire of MIT did some thing similar for Fluid Structure interaction using DG methods for both fluids and structures.

If such a generic framework is possible, then, the natural question is, are there any commercial/opensource solvers capable of those?

I am aware of Star-CCM+ which deals with Computational Continuum Mechanics. But, I don't know much details about it.

Sorry to post another technical topic. Thought it would be more relevant to post here than on other forums.

Shyam

[jstults]

From their site:



While OpenFOAM can be used as a standard simulation package, it offers much more. Essentially, OpenFOAM is a suite of C++ libraries, most of which are supplied with source code. It uses primarily the finite volume method to solve coupled sets of partial differential equations (typical of engineering problems) ascribed on any 3D unstructured mesh of cells with an arbitrary number of faces that may undergo motion and/or topological changes. OpenFOAM is designed to be a flexible, programmable environment for simulation by having top-level code that is a direct representation of the equations being solved, e.g.:
is represented by the code:
solve
(
fvm::ddt(rho, U)
+ fvm::div(phi, U)
- fvm::laplacian(mu, U)
==
- fvc::grad(p)
);

Standard solvers:

’Basic’ CFD
Incompressible flows
Compressible flows
Multiphase flows
DNS
Combustion
Heat transfer
Molecular dynamics methods
DSMC methods
Electromagnetics
Solid dynamics
Finance