Code_Aster

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Code_Aster is a software package for finite element analysis and numeric simulation in structural mechanics originally developed as an in-house application by the French company EDF. It was released as free software under the terms of the GNU General Public License, in October 2001.

Code_Aster represent by now 1,200,000 lines of source code, most of it in Fortran and Python, and is being constantly developed, updated and upgraded with new models. Justifying quality labels required by nuclear industry, most of the fields of the software have been validated by independent comparisons with analytical or experimental results, benchmarks towards other codes. The software is provided with about 2,000 tests: they are devoted to elementary qualification and are useful as examples. The documentation of Code_Aster represent more than 12,000 pages: user's manuals, theory manuals compiling EDF's know-how in mechanics, example problems, verification manuals.

1 Features
2 Availability
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Features

Code_Aster is mainly a solver for mechanics, based on the theory of the Finite elements. This tool covers a large range of applications : 3D thermal analyses and mechanical analyses in linear and non-linear statics and dynamics, for machines, pressure vessels and civil engineering structures ... Beyond the standard functionalities of a FEM software for solid mechanics, Code_Aster compiles specific research in various fields : fatigue, damage, fracture, contact, geomaterials, porous media, multi-physics coupling.

It is widely used at EDF for the expertise and the maintenance of power plants and electrical networks.