Overview

Main Ideas

Do just a few things, really well

• Clean, concise, well-documented source code
• Focused feature set
• Robust and thoroughly tested
• Extensive user manual and examples
• Engage the community and make it easier for others to contribute

Motivation

Why a new open-source FEA code, anyways?

Finite element analysis is used by mechanical engineers all across the world to prototype their designs virtually before building physical hardware. In many industries, this element of the design process is invaluable, because it can save many costly prototype-build-test-redesign cycles.

However, the FEA software tool market has become extremely condensed in recent years, and the commercial software tools available are often far more expensive than small teams can afford and large organizations are willing to spend. FEA is a type of analytical method that has been well-understood since the 60’s, yet there is no single open-source project usable by non-coders that has the broad software development support of a full community.

What about Calculix, Code_Aster, Salome-Meca, FreeFEM, etc?

These softwares are excellent, but they don’t fill the same niche that SHEPHERD aims to fill. In particular, they may function well, but piles of uncommented codebases sprawling decades of development do not serve to engage new developers and aid younger engineers in understanding how the code works.

Use Cases

• Mechanical designer looking to validate a few components on their workstation
• Analysis department running many large jobs on an HPC cluster
• Researchers wanting to design parametrized experiments