PLEIADES
platformCast3M
finite element solverNumerous performances assessments were made within the PLEIADES platform : replacing fortran implementations by their MFront
counterparts led to significant improvements, from \(30\%\) to \(50\%\) of the total computational times of some fuel performance codes developed in the platform.
This improvements were mainly due to fact that the behaviour integration schemes changed from explicit Runge-Kutta schemes to implicit ones. The main benefit of MFront
was to grant users an easier access to the implicit schemes.
Cyrano3
fuel performance codeRelying on the specific modelling hypotheses supported by this code, namely axisymmetrical generalised plane stress and axisymmetrical generalised plane strain, highly specialised and efficient implementations of mechanical behaviours were developed in Cyrano3
fuel performance code [see 1] for both isotropic and orthotropic materials : numerical integration boils down to solving a scalar non linear equation in both cases and provides the consistent tangent operator.
The figure below compares the total computational times of a native implementation of a cladding behaviour to its equivalent MFront
implementation: the last one appears to be competitive with the native implementation (the average computational time using the MFront
implementation is sightly lower than the average computational time using the native implementation).
Code-Aster
finite element solverBehaviour and test description | Algorithm | Total computational times (Code-Aster vs MFront ) |
Graphical illustration |
---|---|---|---|
Visco-plastic and damaging for steel [see 2, 3] - 3D Notched specimen implying large deformation | Implicit |
\(17mn 43s\) vs \(7mn 58s\) | |
Damaging for concrete [see 4, 5], 3D beam bending | Default |
\(45mn\) vs \(63mn\) | |
Generic Single crystal viscoplasticity [see 7, 8], 3D aggregate, 300 grains | Implicit |
\(28mn\) vs \(24mn\) | |
FCC single crystal viscoplasticity [8] , 2D specimen with displacement boundary conditions from EBSD experiment | Ìmplicit |
\(33m54s\) vs \(29m30s\) | |
FCC homogeneized polycrystals 30 grains [8, see 10], unit testing | Runge-Kutta 4/5 |
\(9s67\) vs \(8s22\) | |
Anisotropic creep with phase transformation, 3D pipe [see 11] | Implicit |
\(180s\) vs \(171s\) |
Developers of the Code-Aster
general purpose finite element solver, made independent extensive tests, comparing their own native implementations to the ones generated with MFront
, generally using an implicit scheme in both cases. Without discussing the very details of each test performed, several general conclusions can be drawn:
MFront
behaviours. In the second case, the difference can be explained by the fact that the Code-Aster implementations uses the Brent algorithm [see 13] which clearly outperforms the standard Newton method. The availability of this algorithm in MFront
is planed.MFront
implementation are on par or outperforms the native implementations.For a given behaviour, the development time was found significantly lower with MFront
.