OpenIFEM: A High Performance Modular Open-Source Software of the Immersed Finite Element Method for Fluid-Structure...

Area of Science:

• Computational Fluid Dynamics
• Solid Mechanics
• Computational Science

Background:

• Existing open-source software for fluid-structure interaction (FSI) often have limitations in discretization methods, modularity, and extensibility.
• There is a need for flexible, well-documented, and extensible open-source tools to advance FSI research.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce OpenIFEM, a high-performance, modular, open-source software for solving fluid-structure interaction (FSI) problems.
• To provide a versatile platform for coupling diverse fluid and solid mechanics solvers.
• To facilitate the development and application of advanced FSI algorithms.

Main Methods:

• Implementation of the modified immersed finite element method (mIFEM) in C++.
• Modular software design with generic classes for adaptable coupling of fluid and solid solvers.
• Utilization of well-developed libraries and inclusion of standard test cases for validation.

Main Results:

• OpenIFEM supports incompressible and slightly compressible fluid models, linear and nonlinear solid mechanics, and fully coupled FSI.
• The software is cross-platform (Linux, Windows, Mac OS) and utilizes CMake for building.
• Efficient parallelization is implemented for high-performance computing on large-scale problems.

Conclusions:

• OpenIFEM offers a robust and extensible solution for FSI simulations.
• The software's modularity and adaptability are expected to accelerate the development of new FSI algorithms.
• OpenIFEM is publicly available on GitHub, promoting wider adoption and application in various FSI domains.