HiFEM® is a patented software toolkit based on a Hierarchical Finite Element Method to enable efficient, multi-physics simulation of complex systems characterized by extremes in spatial fidelity. Its main goal is to provide a common computational framework whose efficiency surpasses those of traditional finite element methods by orders of magnitude. Thus, HiFEM provides a practical solution for real-time evaluation of as-built systems in the earth and engineering sciences.
Workflow for System Evaluation
HiFEM is a modular system consisting of independent physics packages that read a common tetrahedral mesh and generate output in standardized VTK format. A stand-alone translator (inp2cjw) is available to convert Abaqus mesh files to the HiFEM format. This feature allows the user the freedom to use whatever Abaqus-compliant meshing package (e.g., Cubit) best matches their experience and requirements. Standardized VTK-formatted output offers additional freedom to the user, allowing post-processing from a non-proprietary format readable by multiple data visualization tools (e.g., VisIt or ParaView).
Efficiency through Hierarchical Material Properties
HiFEM gains its efficiency through a novel representation of material properties. Thin features in 1D or 2D are described by edge- or face-based equivalents on the mesh tetrahedra themselves. This design eliminates the need for extreme volumetric meshing, which explodes the computational cost both in mesh storage requirements and problem runtime.
