FeatFlow

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Revision as of 01:43, 16 March 2018

FeatFlow (for "Finite Element Analysis Toolbox for Flow") is a free and open-source high-performance computational fluid dynamics Fortran CFD code solving the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations in two and three dimensions.

Unique for CFD and FEM codes, FeatFlow employs a finite element discretization with rotated non-conforming basis functions^[1] which coupled with a geometric multigrid approach enables very high performance^[2]. Several numerical benchmarking projects have compared FeatFlow in CFD benchmarks with other academic and commercial CFD codes such as OpenFOAM, CFX, Comsol, and Fluent, where it has been shown that FeatFlow can be significantly faster and more efficient, computing a more accurate solution in less CPU time for some flows^[3][4][5].

Although FeatFlow is designed and can be used as a stand-alone CFD flow solver, a MATLAB CFD and Octave cross-platform GUI interface is also available. The FEATool Multiphysics-FeatFlow GUI environment is fully integrated with CAD, geometry, grid generation, as well as postprocessing and makes FeatFlow easier to learn and use ^[6].

References

[1] "FeatFlow source code and development repository" https://github.com/featflow/featflow

[2] "Simple nonconforming quadrilateral Stokes element". Numerical Methods for Partial Differential Equations. 8 (2): 97–111. 1992.

[3] Efficient Solvers for Incompressible Flow Problems, Series: Lecture Notes in Computational Science and Engineering. 6. Springer-Verlag. 1999. ISBN 978-3-642-58393-3.

[4] "Benchmark Computations of 3D Laminar Flow Around a Cylinder with CFX, OpenFOAM and FeatFlow". International Journal of Computational Science and Engineering. 7 (3): 253–266. 2012.

[5] "Evaluation of commercial and academic CFD codes for a two-phase flow benchmark test case". International Journal of Computational Science and Engineering. 10 (4): 387–394. 2015.

[6] "Cylinder Flow Benchmark with Commercial Software Package - A Comparative Study" (PDF). Ergebnisberichte des Instituts für Angewandte Mathematik. 287. 2005.

[7] "FeatFlow CFD solver GUI integration with MATLAB" https://medium.com/multiphysics/featflow-cfd-solver-gui-integration-with-matlab-b50cbd0545c7