Research Code dockSIM

Idea | Target group

The research code dockSIM was designed as a development environment for an interface-based implementation of numerical methods (for the class of discretization methods). The focus is on numerical methods for solving nonlinear and strongly nonlinear problems. In addition to established methods (e.g. FEM) and their extensions, this also includes new and novel numerical methods that cannot be implemented in existing "single-method research codes" or can only be implemented with great effort. In addition, different numerical methods can also be combined or coupled with each other in dockSIM.

The dockSIM research code provides scientists with a platform that enables them to develop, implement and test new numerical methods as quickly and easily as possible.


Libraries | Extensibility

With the overriding goal of a highly modularized research code, the concept of libraries was already consistently implemented during the design of the code. The flexibility of the interfaces provided makes it possible to implement even far-reaching code extensions at the level of "normal" user interfaces. In addition to the usual interfaces for integrating your own element formulations (UserElement) and your own constitutive equations (UserMaterial), which are familiar from the context of FE codes, dockSIM also provides a large number of other libraries. These include a special library for embedding new types of numerical methods.

Independently of this, extensive mathematical functions can be used to extend the code, which are also provided via integrated external mathematical libraries (e.g. MKL from Intel).


Programming language

The source code of the research code was divided into 13 individual projects, whereby 12 projects were programmed in C and 1 project in C++. The code is tested with different compilers (Intel, Gnu, Microsoft) and managed with the Git version control system.


History | Development team

Since 2010, the research code dockSIM has been developed or further developed in the respective working groups of Prof. Wackerfuß. The main developers were or are Jens Wackerfuß (since 2010), Jonas Marczona (2010-2016), Florian Niederhöfer (2010-2016) and Jonas Boungard (since 2015). Scientists from the fields of computational mechanics, mathematics and computer science have been involved in the development to date.


Funding

The development of the dockSIM research code would not have been possible without financial support. Our special thanks go to the German Research Foundation for funding the project as part of the Emmy Noether Junior Research Group. We have received and continue to receive further support through basic funding from the Technical University of Darmstadt and the University of Kassel.


Availability

The research code is planned as an "open-source project". For resource-related reasons, this philosophy has not yet been fully implemented. It is in our interest that the research code is also used and further developed by other scientists. These further developments should then generally also be included in the basic version administered by us so that other scientists can also benefit from them.


Publication

The basic concept of the dockSIM research code as well as information on the structure and data structure are currently being summarized in a publication.


Seminars

The development team offers so-called "dockSIM seminars" for beginners and advanced users at irregular intervals (and as required).


Contact

If you are curious to find out more about dockSIM or have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us or send an e-mail to: wackerfuss@uni-kassel.de.