New open-source ANSYS-SolidWorks-FLAC3D geometry conversion programs

Abstract

Numerical calculations are used increasingly often to obtain a stress-strain state in many engineering problems. A popular program for this type of calculation which makes use of the finite difference method (a continuous method) is Itasca's FLAC3D. However, an important limitation of FLAC3D is the difficulty of geometry creation. This paper presents new open-source programs allowing the preparation of numerical models in a third-party software (ANSYS, SolidWorks) and their conversion to internal FLAC3D geometry files. The converters have been written in BASH-scripting language and published under the terms of the GNU General Public License, which allows the free distribution and/or modification of the software with some limitations.

Keywords

• Numerical modelling
• Material modelling
• Mesh design
• Geometry converter
• FDM
• FLAC3D