A Flexible C++ Framework for the Efficient Solution of Strongly Coupled Multifield Problems

Coupled multifield problems occur in a wide variety of engineering applications. Due to the ever increasing available computational ressources, the numerical analysis of multifield phenomena has gained much interest in recent years. Partitioned solution strategies have been demonstrated to be a flexible and efficient way to solve even strongly coupled multifield problems. Major advantages of these approaches are the possibility to use different spatial and temporal discretizations for each of the subproblems and to employ existing, specialized solvers for their solution. In this work, we propose the software framework comana, which incorporates a partitioned solution strategy for the efficient numerical treatment of general multifield problems. Drawing on a highly modular architecture, comana greatly facilitates exchanging solvers and allows to easily implement tuned coupling algorithms. (© 2016 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)