The page describes the new functionalities of Version 3.4.2 of the TFEL project.

This version was released This version was released on September 21, 2021 along with Versions 3.0.9, 3.1.9, 3.2.6 an 3.3.2 and inherits from the issues solved in those versions.

1 New features of MFront

1.1 Ability to compute the interaction matrix manually

This development was made to solve Issue #267 (see Section 3.8).

MFront has extensive support for the definition of single crystal as documented here: <singlecrystal.html>.

If the slip systems are defined (using for example the @SlipSystem keyword) , the class describing the slip system now has a buildInteractionMatrix which is meant to work as follows:

@Parameters real im_coefficients[7];
im_coefficients.setEntryName("InteractionMatrixCoefficients");

....

@Integrator{
  const auto& ss = FCCSingleCrystalSlipSystems<real>::getSlipSystems();
  const auto m = ss.buildInteractionMatrix(im_coefficients);
  ....
}

2 New features of MTest

2.1 Basic support for material properties

This development was made to solve Issue #273 (see Section 3.3).

An abstract class named MaterialProperty has been added as an equivalent for material properties of the Behaviour class. This class has the following interface:

The CastemMaterialProperty and CyranoMaterialProperty classes are two concrete implementation of the class for material properties generated respectively using the Cast3M and Cyrano interfaces respectively.

In C++, the MaterialProperty class exposes a static method called getMaterialProperty which acts as an abstract factory.

This class and associated method are also available in the python bindings. The getMaterialProperty method is used in python to build a custom constructor as illustrated in the following example.

2.1.1 Example

Here is an example of the usage of the MaterialProperty class in python.

import mtest
young_modulus = mtest.MaterialProperty(
    'src/libCastemVanadium.so', 'VanadiumAlloy_YoungModulus_SRMA')
young_modulus.setVariableValue('Temperature', 562)
E = young_modulus.getValue()

Note that the MaterialProperty constructor automatically detects the interface used to generate the material property and instantiates the proper concrete implementation internally which is obsviously the CastemMaterialProperty class in this case.

Setting the variables’ values and evaluating the material property can be tedious. To avoid this, overloaded versions of the getValue are available:

# using a dictionary
E = young_modulus.getValue({'Temperature': 562})
# for material properties with only one argument
E = young_modulus.getValue(562)

To make the code even more explicit, the call operator can also be used, as follows:

# using a dictionary
E = young_modulus({'Temperature': 562})
# for material properties with only one argument
E = young_modulus(562)

3 Issues fixed

3.1 Issue #8: [python bindings] Implementation error in overrideModelName in OverridableImplementation

For more details, see: https://github.com/thelfer/tfel/issues/8

3.2 Issue #274: [material properties] Allow to specify types of the output, inputs and parameters

The output, inputs and parameters of a material property can now be declared with any scalar type supported by the SupportedTypes class.

For more details, see: https://sourceforge.net/p/tfel/tickets/274/

3.3 Issue #273: [mtest] Add basic support for testing material properties

The developments associated with this issue are described in Section 2.1.

For more details, see: https://sourceforge.net/p/tfel/tickets/273/

3.4 Issue #272: [material properties] Export parameters list, bounds and default values

The list of parameters is now exported by interfaces of material properties which provides a setParameter method (namely the Cast3M and Cyrano interfaces).

The ExternalLibraryManager now have an getMaterialPropertyParameters method which allows to retrieve this list of parameters. This method is also available in the python bindings.

The ExternalMaterialPropertyDescription class which can gathers all the informations exported by a material property new have a parameters data member with the list of the parameters of the material property. This data member is also accessible in the python bindings.

For more details, see: https://sourceforge.net/p/tfel/tickets/272/

3.5 Issue #271: [mfront bindings] Support for material properties

The getDSL method now returns an object of the MaterialPropertyDSL type which derives from the AbstractDSL class. It exposes a method called getMaterialPropertyDescription which returns information about the material property.

The MaterialPropertyDescription exposes the following methods:

For more details, see: https://sourceforge.net/p/tfel/tickets/271/

3.6 Issue #269: Allow postprocessing of the inner pressure evolution in PipeTest when imposing the axial radius evolution in the python bindings

When the evolution of the outer radius is imposed, the inner pressure evolution can now be retrieved using the following code:

p = s.getEvolutionValue("InnerPressure", t)

where s is an object of type StudyCurrentState and t the considered time.

This syntax can also be used to retrieve the “AxialForce” when the axial growth is imposed, as follows:

f = s.getEvolutionValue("AxialForce", t)

For more details, see: https://sourceforge.net/p/tfel/tickets/269/

3.7 Issue #268: Missing methods in mtest.MTest for the comparison of the tangent operator to a numerical approximation

The MTest executable allows to compare the tangent operator returned by the behaviour to a numerical approximation. To be able to do the same using the python interface, the following methods have been added:

For more details, see: https://sourceforge.net/p/tfel/tickets/268/

3.8 Issue #267: InteractionMatrix coefficients as parameters / material properties

The developments associated with this issue are described in Section 1.1.

For more details, see : https://sourceforge.net/p/tfel/tickets/267/