Introducing the open-source mfront code generator: Application to mechanical behaviours and material knowledge management within the PLEIADES fuel element modelling platform. (September 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Helfer, Thomas; Michel, Bruno; Proix, Jean-Michel; Salvo, Maxime; Sercombe, Jérôme; Casella, Michel
• Is Part Of: Computers & mathematics with applications. Volume 70:issue 5(2015)
• Page Start: 994
• Page End: 1023
• Publication Date: 2015-09
• Subjects: Electronic data processing -- Periodicals; Mathematics -- Data processing -- Periodicals; 510.28541
• DOI: 10.1016/j.camwa.2015.06.027
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0898-1221

Abstract

<abstract xml:lang="en" abstract-type="author" id="a000005"> <title id="st000005">Abstract</title> <sec> <p id="sp000130">The <monospace>PLEIADES</monospace> software environment is devoted to the thermomechanical simulation of nuclear fuel elements behaviour under irradiation. This platform is co-developed in the framework of a research cooperative program between Électricité de France (<monospace>EDF</monospace>), AREVA and the French Atomic Energy Commission (<monospace>CEA</monospace>). As many thermomechanical solvers are used within the platform, one of the PLEAIADES's main challenge is to propose a unified software environment for capitalisation of material knowledge coming from research and development programs on various nuclear systems.</p> <p id="sp000135">This paper introduces a tool called <monospace>mfront</monospace> which is basically a code generator based on <ext-link ext-link-type="unknown" id="ir000025" xlink:type="simple" xlink:href="http://isocpp.org/" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">C++</ext-link> (Stroustrup and Eberhardt, 2004). Domain specific languages are provided which were designed to simplify the implementations of new material properties, mechanical behaviours and simple material models. <monospace>mfront</monospace> was recently released under the GPL open-source licence and is available on its web site: <ext-link ext-link-type="unknown" id="ir000030" xlink:type="simple" xlink:href="http://tfel.sourceforge.net/" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">http://tfel.sourceforge.net/</ext-link>.</p> <p id="sp000140">The authors hope that it will prove useful for researchers and engineers, in particular in the field of solid mechanics. <monospace>mfront</monospace> interfaces generate code specific to each solver and language considered.</p> <p id="sp000145">In this paper, after a general overview of <monospace>mfront</monospace> functionalities, a particular focus is made on mechanical behaviours which are by essence more complex and may have significant impact on the numerical performances of mechanical simulations. <monospace>mfront</monospace> users can describe all kinds of mechanical phenomena, such as viscoplasticity, plasticity and damage, for various types of mechanical behaviour (small strain or finite strain behaviour, cohesive zone models). Performance benchmarks, performed using the <ext-link ext-link-type="unknown" id="ir000035" xlink:type="simple" xlink:href="http://www.code-aster.org" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Code_Aster</ext-link> finite element solver, show that the code generated using <monospace>mfront</monospace> is in most cases on par or better than the behaviour implementations written in <monospace>fortran</monospace> natively available in this solver. The material knowledge management strategy that was set up within the <monospace>PLEIADES</monospace> platform is briefly discussed. A material database named <monospace>sirius</monospace> proposes a rigorous material verification workflow.</p> <p id="sp000150">We illustrate the use of <monospace>mfront</monospace> through two case of studies: a simple FFC single crystal viscoplastic behaviour and the implementation of a recent behaviour for the fuel material which describes various phenomena: fuel cracking, plasticity and viscoplasticity.</p> </sec> </abstract>