COOLFluiD Project
Definition
COOLFluiD stands for Computational Object Oriented Library for Fluid Dynamics.
The COOLFluiD project is a long term effort towards the development of a next generation MultiPhysics and MultiMethod family of solvers, by constructing a software framework where different numerical techniques and physical models can coexist and work together.
The framework possesses a extensible plug-in architecture, being formed by a kernel that creates and manages an environment to which multiple modules can be plugged-in dynamically at run-time. The kernel itself implements no numerical methodologies or physics.
The numerical methods and physical models are encapsulated into libraries that are loaded before any simulation, therefore adding capabilities to the else empty kernel. These libraries can be considered as components to be re-used as building blocks of a diverse family of solvers.
This architecture permits more flexible extensions by third-party developer institutions than the more usual user-defined-functions techniques, by allowing not only the addition of boundary conditions, source terms, new physical characteristics but also of complete external alternative discretization methods.
Since different types of physical models may possess different inherent mathematical properties, having a truly flexible multi-method family of solvers allows to choose the most appropriate numerical method to each problem at hand.
Aims
The main objective of the project is the development of a framework which possesses certain qualities:
- Modularity - Plugin's linked at run-time
- Scalability - capacity for evolution
- Maintainability - clear structure for accelerated learning process
- Efficiency - minimization of cpu time and memory consumption
