FEATool Multiphysics 1.8 is Unveiled

The FEATool Multiphysics PDE and FEM Simulation Toolbox version 1.8 from Precise Simulation is now available for MATLAB and GNU Octave, featuring the following improvements and new additions.

In addition to being a fully integrated FEA multiphysics toolbox, and interfacing with the FEniCS FEM solver and external mesh generators such as DistMesh, GiD, Gmsh, and Triangle, the major new feature of FEATool 1.8 is a fully integrated and cross-platform OpenFOAM CFD Solver GUI interface for MATLAB and GNU Octave.

The new MATLAB CFD interface for the OpenFOAM CFD solver now allows users to conveniently model both laminar and fully turbulent incompressible Navier-Stokes CFD problems all within a graphical user interface (GUI). The integrated FEATool-OpenFOAM interface features

• built-in geometry and CAD tools (with optional STL CAD geometry file import);
• automatic mesh generation (with automatic 2D to 3D mesh conversion and extrusion for 2D problems);
• FEATool Multiphysics to OpenFOAM case file conversion;
• OpenFOAM solver selection and settings, as well as control;
• OpenFOAM to MATLAB and FEATool solution interpolation and import; and
• CFD postprocessing and visualization.

As with all the FEATool MATLAB GUI functionality, models can also be saved and exported as m-file CLI functions whereby custom scripting and support for all MATLAB and Octave functions and toolboxes is supported.

With the added support for the OpenFOAM CFD solver and FEniCS, high-performance multiphysics, multi-simulation and CFD modeling can now be all be conveniently done within an easy-to-use and self-contained software interface.

FEATool 1.8 features a new and improved CAD and geometry engine completely written in the MATLAB m-script language for maximum efficiency and portability. The new CAD engine significantly improves performance and accuracy, especially with respect to treatment of 3D geometries. Moreover, both 2D (planar) and 3D STL CAD file import is now also fully supported, allowing for more complex geometries to be modeled in FEATool Multiphysics.

Following are some highlights:

• cleaned up and consistent grid generation interfaces (with identical boundary and subdomain numbering);
• cached and vectorized equation and expression parsing for more efficient and faster general expression evaluations;
• rewritten nonlinear Newton assembly and solver framework with automatic numeric Jacobian assembly calculation with support for topology optimization; and
• general fixes and user interface (UI) improvements.

For more info, visit Precise Simulation.

Sources: Press materials received from the company.