preCICE - The Coupling Library

A Comparison of various Quasi-Newton Schemes for Partitioned Fluid-Structure Interaction

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Conference Proceedings at the ECCOMAS Coupled Problems 2015

A Coupling Tool for the Partitioned Simulation of Fluid-Structure Interactions

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In T. Kvamsdal, B. Pettersen, P. Bergan, E. Onate and J. Garcia (ed.), Computational Methods in Marine Engineering, Volume 3, p. 147–150. CIMNE, Trondheim, June 2009

A Fixed-Grid Flow Solver for Fluid-Structure Interaction with the Coupling Library preCICE

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Master’s thesis, Department of Informatics, Technical University of Munich

A flexible approach to 2D-3D coupling of a Shallow-Water Equation solver to OpenFOAM

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Master’s thesis, Department of Informatics, Technical University of Munich

A Fully Parallel Process-to-Process Intercommunication Technique for preCICE

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Master’s thesis, Department of Informatics, Technical University of Munich

A general OpenFOAM adapter for the coupling library preCICE

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Master’s thesis, Department of Informatics, Technical University of Munich

A GUI for OpenFOAM/CalculiX FSI coupling with preCICE

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DHCAE Tools provides services to support companies and universities for the implementation of open-source solver technology. Beside this, DHCAE Tools offers calculation services for flow applications, whereby fluid-structure applications are a long-standing field of activity with commercial solvers as well as with self-developed couplings. Due to preCICE’s outstanding capabilities, the setup of a coupling between OpenFOAM and CalculiX is now supported by DHCAE Tools in the graphical interface CastNet. This simplifies the mesh generation, the case setup for both OpenFOAM and CalculiX, the definition of the coupling parameters and finally the monitoring of the simulation. Learn more

A handful of exciting tutorials

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A handful of ready-to-run cases for you to build upon.

A Parallel, Black-Box Coupling for Fluid-Structure Interaction

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In S. Idelsohn, M. Papadrakakis and B. Schrefler (ed.), Computational Methods for Coupled Problems in Science and Engineering, COUPLED PROBLEMS 2013, Spain.

A plug-and-play coupling approach for parallel multi-field simulations

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Article published in Computational Mechanics June 2015

A Review on Fast Quasi-Newton and Accelerated Fixed Point Iterations for Partitioned Fluid-Structure Interaction Simulation

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Chapter published in Advances in Computational Fluid-Structure Interaction, Springer, Editors: Kenji Takizawa, Yuri Bazilevs

About the preCICE project

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Development

preCICE is developed in the groups of Benjamin Uekermann (Usability and Sustainability of Simulation Software) and Miriam Schulte (Simulation of Large Systems) at the University of Stuttgart and in the group of Hans-Joachim Bungartz (Scientific Computing in Computer Science) at the Technical University of Munich. Support contracts are offered through TTI GmbH.

For the full list of contributors to preCICE please see our community page.

The conceptual ideas of preCICE are not completely new. preCICE is an advancement of FSI*ce, developed by Markus Brenk.

Acceleration configuration

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Mathematically, implicit coupling schemes lead to fixed-point equations at the coupling interface. A pure implicit coupling without acceleration corresponds to a simple fixed-point iteration, which still has the same stability issues as an explicit coupling. We need acceleration techniques to stabilize and accelerate the fixed-point iteration.

Action configurations

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Sometimes, coupled solvers provide just not quite the data that you need to couple. For instance, a fluid solver provides stresses at the coupling boundary, whereas a solid solver requires forces. In this case, you can use so-called coupling actions to modify coupling data at runtime. These coupling actions are essentially a set of functionalities that have access to coupling meshes and the corresponding data values. On this page, we explain how you can use them.

Adapter software engineering

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The example developed in the step-by-step guide is a rather intrusive way of writing an adapter as we directly modify the main solver routines. This page discusses alternative architectures, as well as further technical aspects of the adapter as a software project.

Adaptive control of simulations

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Micro Manager can solve simulations adaptively.

Adaptive switching of simulation models

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Micro Manager can adaptively switch models of micro simulations.

Application programming interface

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This page gives an overview on available preCICE APIs and minimal reference implementations.

Become part of the preCICE community

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preCICE workshops

Do you want to meet the community and learn what is new in preCICE? There is no better way than to join one of our workshops or trainings!

The preCICE forum

Meet the community online, ask questions, and help others at the preCICE forum on Discourse. Structured conversations, which help the future reader. We also post announcements from time to time, so make sure to register to be the first one to learn about new workshops and releases.

Build the adapter

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Get SU2, get preCICE, execute adapter install script

Building from source - Advanced

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Debian packages

Note: You may prefer to directly use the provided packages attached to our releases.

To generate Debian packages, make sure to set the following variables:

cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..
make -j $(nproc) package

The directory should now contain a .deb package and the corresponding checksum file. You can install this using your package manager (to be able to remove properly): sudo apt install ./libprecice3.4.1.deb

In case you want to remove this package, use your package manager: sudo apt purge libprecice3.4.1.

Building from source - Building

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To build preCICE, run make in the build directory.

You can also build in parallel using all available logical cores using make -j $(nproc). In that case, remember that the more threads you use, the more main memory will be needed.

The next step

As a next step, please run the tests to ensure everything works as expected.

If you feel lucky, you can skip straight to installing preCICE.

Building from source - Configuration

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preCICE uses CMake to configure and build the library. After this step, preCICE is ready to be built.

Using presets

preCICE offers a range of CMake configuration presets, which all use the build directory build. These presets adjust flags, build type, link-time optimizations, assertions, and more. You can combine presets with other CMake arguments such as -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=....

To see all available presets use:

cd precice-3.4.1 # Enter the preCICE source directory
cmake --list-presets

Then, to configure preCICE, run:

Building from source - Dependencies

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This page describes the dependencies used by preCICE, how to install them on various systems and how to build them.

Building from source - Finding

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If you installed preCICE in a custom prefix, then you still need to make it discoverable by the system.

The preCICE library needs to be discoverable in various ways:

The location of headers must be available during compilation. Compilers use hints from CPATH if no extra compilation flags were passed to them using -I.
The shared library must be available during linking and execution. The dynamic linker uses hints from LD_LIBRARY_PATH (DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH on macOS).
The preCICE executables must be in PATH (optional, only for additional tools).

As this setup can become tedious to maintain, there are some tools that expose the above details. However, they also need to find preCICE in some way:

Building from source - Installation

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It is time to install preCICE into the installation prefix chosen during preparation and used during the configuration with CMake.

To install preCICE run make install.

If the chosen prefix points to a system directory, you may have to run sudo make install.

Testing your installation

To test your installation please run make test_install. This will attempt to build our C++ example program against the installed version of the library. This is commonly known as the smoke test.

Building from source - Preparation

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Which version to build

You decided to build preCICE from source, thus you most likely require a specific configuration.

preCICE builds as a fully-featured library by default, but you can turn off some features. This is the way to go if you run into issues with an unnecessary dependency.

These features include:

Support for MPI communication.
Support for radial-basis function mappings based on PETSc. This requires MPI communication to be enabled.
Support for user-defined python actions.

We recommend to leave all features enabled unless you have a good reason to disable them.

Building from source - Testing

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To test preCICE after building, run ctest inside the build directory.

This will execute 3 types of tests:

Component-wise unit tests
Integration tests
Compilation and run tests based on example programs

For technical reasons, unit and integration tests require preCICE to be compiled with MPI enabled.

To display log output for tests use ctest -VV or ctest --output-on-failure. To change the log level of the output, set the environment variable export BOOST_TEST_LOG_LEVEL=all|test_suite|warning.

Building from source - Troubleshooting

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Troubleshooting

Finding Boost

Boost versions prior to 1.70.0 use the FindBoost module. For custom install prefixes, set the BOOST_ROOT=/path/to/prefix CMake option or environment variable.
Boost version 1.70.0 and later ship with their own config module, which you can find in <prefix>/lib/cmake/Boost-x.xx.x/. To detect it in custom prefixes, set the Boost_DIR=<prefix>/lib/cmake/Boost-x.xx.x/. Have a look at <prefix>/lib/cmake/Boost-x.xx.x/BoostConfig.cmake for additional options.

Finding Python and NumPy

The NumPy detection is directly connected to the detected python interpreter. The easiest solution to force CMake to use a python installation is to set the CMake Variable PYTHON_EXECUTABLE when configuring preCICE for the first time. This is also the method of choice when using a virtual environment or pyenv.

Building the Calculix adapter with PaStiX (and CalculiX 2.17)

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Since version 2.17, CalculiX can be built with the PaStiX library to increase performance with CUDA. Building the preCICE adapter is somehow harder with this version. This page gives a detailed walkthrough to build the modified adapter.

Built-in tooling

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Built-in tooling is always installed alongside preCICE and provides some basic functionality.

CalculiX support

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Supported CalculiX versions and porting the CalculiX adapter to a different CalculiX version.

Closed-loop natural convection flow in deformed bundles

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Deformation of fuel pins in the core of nuclear reactors is the result of several concurrent phenomena and directly affects the peak temperatures reached in the cladding layers. In forced-convection regimes, the excess temperature induced by pin deformations can be reasonably estimated through numerical simulations that focus only on the active region of the assembly. Simulations of fuel bundles under natural convection are significantly more challenging, as the entire primary loop must be resolved in order to accurately capture buoyancy-driven flow dynamics. As the computational domain increases in size, mesh generation becomes increasingly demanding: it is necessary to limit the total number of cells while preserving good mesh quality and appropriately handling transition regions between zones of high and low spatial resolution.

Communication configuration

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A very basic ingredient to coupling is communication. The participants you want to couple need to be able to communicate data. On this page, we explain how communication between participants can be configured.

Community channels

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I need help!

We have all been there: you start using a new tool, only to find out that you don’t know where to start from or who to contact if you need help. Is the project even active nowadays? Just talk to us, and we hope that you will be happily surprised. Everybody is welcome! 🤗 By the way, please follow our code of conduct.

You can find us on our preCICE forum on Discourse, which is great for structured discussions that help everyone. We try our best to help everyone, but this approach does not scale. We would be very happy if you also try to help others - only together way we can build a helping and welcoming online community!

Community stories

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Note:

Do you use preCICE? We are always happy to hear about interesting projects that use preCICE. To add your project here, just fill the form and we will take care of the rest.

If you prefer, you can directly create a pull request to the website repository on GitHub (it is easy also if you don’t yet have any GitHub experience!). A copy of a previous testimonial is a great starting point. Adjust it to your liking, and add a picture. A good example is this pull request.

Config visualization

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Understanding, handling and debugging preCICE configuration files can be difficult and tedious. This tool simplifies this process by visualizing the configuration as a dot graph.

Configuration overview

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preCICE needs to be configured at runtime via an xml file, typically named precice-config.xml. Here, you specify which solvers participate in the coupled simulation, which coupling data values they exchange, which numerical methods are used for the data mapping and the fixed-point acceleration and many other things. On this page, we give you an overview of the complete configuration section of the documentation.

Configure the CalculiX adapter

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Write a config.yml, write a CalculiX case input file, and run an adapted CalculiX executable.

Configure the deal.II codes

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Define your geometry in the individual source code file and case specific parameters (e.g. coupling parameters) in the respective parameter file (*.prm)

Configure the Micro Manager

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Provide a JSON file to configure the Micro Manager.

Configure the OpenFOAM adapter

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Write a system/preciceDict, set compatible boundary conditions, and activate the adapter in your system/controlDict.

Conjugate Heat Transfer with the Multiphysics Coupling Library preCICE

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Master’s thesis, Department of Informatics, Technical University of Munich

Content guidelines

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Learn which style to follow when writing documentation and how to write good titles, content, and page summaries.

Contribute to preCICE

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Do you enjoy improving whatever you can? Did you find a bug in preCICE or one of the adapters? Have you developed a new simulation that could serve as a tutorial? We can use your help!

Talk about your work

We are very interested to know how you use preCICE, and we are regularly looking for contributions to the preCICE Workshop, as well as to invited sessions in broader conferences. We are also interested to know if you are talking about preCICE in other conferences: Don’t forget to mention preCICE by name in your abstract, so that we can find your talk when we are also attending the respective conference.

Contribute to preCICE - Open projects

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Open opportunities for contributing to preCICE

Contributors

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Maintainers

Jun Chen
University of Stuttgart
Gerasimos Chourdakis
University of Stuttgart and Technical University of Munich
Ishaan Desai
University of Stuttgart
Carme Homs Pons
University of Stuttgart
Felix Neubauer
University of Stuttgart
David Schneider
University of Stuttgart

Couple your code

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You want to couple your own code? In this section, you learn how to do that.

Do I need to be a preCICE expert to couple my own code?

No, not at all. Much more important is that you know the code you want to couple very well. Everything related to preCICE will come easy then.

Application programming interface

Coupling your own code means basically to work with the preCICE API. Go to this page for an overview of the available languages and some helpful links.

Coupled simulation of the continuous casting process

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The continuous casting process combines various physical aspects. As the liquid metal is continuously fed into a mould, a mixture between liquid, mushy and solid phases emerges. FVM based CFD solvers (e.g. OpenFOAM, Ansys CFX) are capable of predicting the temperature household considering convective heat transfer. However, FEM based CSM solvers (e.g. LS-DYNA) are better suited for calculating the resulting stress and strain fields, in order to identify critical zones and predict failure. preCICE enables us, the Light Metals Technologies Ranshofen, to couple the CFD solver with the CSM solver so to combine their single advantages. Furthermore, the possibility exists to couple an additional solver for the virtual simulation of the microstructural behaviour during solidification. Learn more

Coupling Algorithms for Partitioned Multi-Physics Simulations

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In Proceedings of the Informatik 2014 Conference, September 2014

Coupling flow

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Do you wonder why there is no sendData and receiveData in preCICE? Instead, there only is advance. We call this a high-level API. On this page, you learn which advantages a high-level API has and how communication and control flow in preCICE works.

Coupling free and porous-medium flow

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In the CRC1313, we work on interface-driven multi-field processes in porous media. One of the cases that we are interested in is coupled free and porous-medium flow for which new coupling concepts and coupling conditions are evaluated and derived. We implement everything in the open-source simulator DuMuX for which we also work on an adapter to make usage of preCICE even more convenient. The partitioned coupling approach and the C++ interface of preCICE allows us to conveniently couple the subproblems, even with non-trivial interfaces in 2D and 3D, while avoiding problems of commonly used monolithic approaches. This increases the flexibility to implement and evaluate different coupling conditions tremendously. Learn more

Coupling mechanics and electrophysiology in skeletal muscles

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In our project “Towards a digital human”, we improve the understanding of the neuromuscular system by simulating multi-scale models of skeletal muscles with realistic resolutions on HPC clusters. In particular, we implemented a complete biophysical multi-scale model of the neuromuscular system in our open-source software OpenDiHu. We simulate biochemical processes of subcellular force generation (0D), muscle fiber activation (1D) as well as electric conduction in the extracellular space (3D). In order to additionally take muscle contraction into account, we apply volume coupling between the finely resolved 3D electromyography model, which computes muscle activation, and a coarse 3D solid mechanics solver, which computes the muscle deformation. Using preCICE, we are able to simulate the respective highly resolved scenarios with 100 million degrees of freedom on more than 9,000 cores on the supercomputer Hawk at the High Performance Computing Center Stuttgart. Furthermore, preCICE helps us to numerically couple multiple mechanical models with different materials, e.g., the biceps brachii muscle and its tendons. Using preCICE, our code is envisioned to become a building block in combination with other external solvers within a comprehensive “digital human model”. Learn more

Coupling meshes in deal.II

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The polynomial support points are used to define the coupling mesh.

Coupling of Shallow Water Equations and OpenFOAM

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As a Master’s thesis project at TUM, we used preCICE for coupling the 3D Navier-Stokes model and the 2D Shallow Water Equations model, using the OpenFOAM framework for the Navier-Stokes model and a stand-alone Shallow Water Equations solver written in C++. Such a coupling is interesting e.g. in flood simulations or simulation of sea waves near structures. The black-box coupling approach of preCICE made such a geometric multiscale coupling easier without any changes on the OpenFOAM side. Learn more

Coupling OpenFOAM to different solvers, physics, models, and dimensions using preCICE

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14th OpenFOAM Workshop, Duisburg, Germany

Coupling scheme configuration

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The coupling scheme is the centerpiece of the preCICE configuration. It describes the logical execution order of two or more participants. On this page, we explain how to couple two participants.

Coupling TherMoS with preCICE

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Master’s thesis, Department of Informatics, Technical University of Munich

Creating a community of contributors for scientific open-source projects: The preCICE case

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Talk in NL-RSE19, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Data Transfer in Partitioned Multi-Physics Simulations: Interpolation & Communication

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PhD thesis, Institute for Parallel and Distributed Systems, University of Stuttgart

Dealing with distributed meshes

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As preCICE is designed for HPC, adapter developers often have to deal with distributed meshes. There is no golden bullet how to best handle distributed meshes with preCICE. On this page, we compare different approaches.

Dealing with FEM meshes

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There are various options how to deal with FEM meshes in preCICE and the best one depends on your application.

Demo Virtual Machine

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A sandbox to try preCICE and all the adapters without having to install them on your system.

Developer documentation

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This section contains information for preCICE maintainers and contributors.

See also the API and source documentation.

Getting started

To start developing preCICE:

Get the preCICE source code git clone https://github.com/precice/precice.git
Install required dependencies
Install additional tooling such as python polars in a separate python venv
Setup and install pre-commit
Configure the build using the development preset cmake --preset=development
Fix unity build
Compile preCICE
Run the tests
Make preCICE findable

Fix Language Servers

Language servers have problems handling unity builds and may not work.

Development of adapter-codes for multiphysical simulations

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At the University of Siegen (LSM group), we are currently developing different adapter codes to run partitioned simulations using preCICE as the coupling interface. In a first step, we coupled two solvers within the frameworks of deal. II and OpenFOAM (foam-extend) to simulate conjugate heat transfer problems. In a second project, a structural solver based on deal. II was coupled with an OpenFOAM solver, capable of handling dynamic mesh movement for FSI simulations. preCICE offers sophisticated post-processing methods, which considerably improved the convergence and stability of our implicitly coupled system. Additionally, the capability of peer-to-peer communication in case of parallel simulations was a reason to choose preCICE. From our point of view, preCICE proved to be a very promising and efficient coupling strategy supported by a committed community of users and a dedicated developer team. For the future, we would like to further improve our self-written adapters as well as test and integrate available adapters.

Direct access to received meshes

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You can access received meshes and their data directly by using specific optional API functions.

Distributed systems

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Running preCICE simulations on a distributed system involves additional setup steps which are covered on this page.

Documentation cheatsheet

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Frontmatter

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title: Configuration Basics
permalink: configuration-introduction.html
keywords: configuration, basics, overview
summary: "Usually the first paragraph of the page. If not create one or simple leave the field blank"
toc: true # optional use false to disable toc
tocheaders: h2,h3,h4 # optional use this to control which headers to show on the page
---

entries:
- title: sidebar
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 - title: Configuration
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 - title: Basics
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 subfolders:
 - title: Coupling Scheme
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 subfolderitems:

 - title: Overview
 url: /configuration-coupling.html
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 - title: Multi Coupling
 url: /configuration-coupling-multi.html
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 - title: Acceleration
 url: /configuration-acceleration.html
 output: web, pdf

Alerts

Hugo shortcode documentation

Documentation of the documentation

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An introduction to developing the preCICE documentation with Hugo: local builds, navigation, page structure, front matter, and imported content.

ECCOMAS Congress 2022

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The ECCOMAS Congress 2022 took place between June 5-9, 2022, in Oslo, Norway. Similar to previous ECCOMAS conferences, we organized a minisymposium Multi-physics simulations with the coupling library preCICE.

Conference proceedings

The invited session

Both sessions take place on Thursday 9th June in room Oslo 1:

Thursday, June 9, 2022, 14:00–16:00

Room: Oslo 1 (GF)
Session: MS46A

Frédéric Simonis et al.: An introduction to the preCICE coupling library
Alexander Jaust et al.: Simulation of multi-physics porous-media applications using partitioned black-box methods

ECCOMAS Coupled Problems 2019

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The ECCOMAS Coupled Problems 2019 took place in Sitges (Barcelona), Spain, between 3-5 June, 2019.

We organized the minisymposium Multi-physics Simulations with the Coupling Library preCICE, which had three sessions.

Conference proceedings

Schedule of the Minisymposium

Wednesday, June 5, 11:30 - 13:30

Session: IS- Multi-physics Simulations with the Coupling Library preCICE I

B. Uekermann et al.: Algorithms for Multi-Model Coupled Problems in preCICE
S. Scheiblhofer et al.: Coupling FEM and CFD Solvers for Continuous Casting Process Simulation Using preCICE
D. Cinquegrana et al.: Framework for Fluid-Structure Interaction Simulations with UZEN and PreCICE: Simulations Procedure and Validation
K. Davis et al.: Tuning Numerical Coupling Parameters for Heart Valve Simulations with OpenFOAM and CalculiX
D. Volland et al.: Parallel Coupling for TherMoS with preCICE
A. Monge et al.: Partitioned Multirate Domain Decomposition Waveform Relaxation Methods for the Heat Equation

Wednesday, June 5, 14:30 - 16:30

Session: IS- Multi-physics Simulations with the Coupling Library preCICE II

ECCOMAS Coupled Problems 2021

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The ECCOMAS COUPLED 2021 was originally scheduled for summer 2021 in Chia Laguna, South Sardinia, Italy but was changed to a virtual format. Continuing the tradition, we organized an invited session Multi-physics simulations with the coupling library preCICE.

The invited session

Schedule:

Wednesday June 16, 2021, 14:00–16:00

Ishaan Desai: An Introduction to the preCICE Coupling Library
Julian Seuffert: Resin Transfer Molding (RTM) of Fiber-Reinforced Polymer Sandwich Parts: Mold Filling Simulations with Fluid-Structure Interaction
Alessandro Cocco: Coupled Multi-Body-Mid Fidelity Aerodynamic Solver for Tiltrotor Aeroelastic Simulation
Claudio Caccia: Coupling Multi-Body and Fluid Dynamics Analysis with preCICE and MBDyn

Wednesday June 16, 2021, 16:30–18:30

Prasad Adhav: AWJC Nozzle Simulation by 6-way Coupling of DEM+CFD+FEM Using preCICE Coupling Library
Max Firmbach: Aeroelastic Simulation of Slender Wings for Electric Aircraft: A Partitioned Approach with DUNE and preCICE
Yusuke Takahashi: Numerical Simulation of Fluid-Structure Interaction for Thin Flat Delta Wing at Transonic Speed based on Opensource Software
Benjamin Maier: Enabling a Multi-Scale Electro-Mechanical Skeletal Muscle Model for High-Performance Computing Using Volume Coupling

Follow the discussion on the forum.

ECCOMAS Coupled Problems 2023

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The ECCOMAS Coupled Problems 2023 took place on Crete from June 5 to June 7.

We organized a preCICE minisymposium: Multi-Physics and Multi-Scale Simulations with the Coupling Library preCICE (IS14).

Conference proceedings

Feel free to ask questions in the corresponding thread of the forum.

Schedule of the Minisymposium

Tuesday, June 6, 8:30 - 10:30

Room: Imperial - Hall II, Session: IS14 - I

Frédéric Simonis et al.: An introduction to the preCICE coupling library
Prasad Adhav et al.: Investigation of CFD-DEM momentum coupling results for AWJC Nozzle using preCICE
Bhargav Krishna Chitneedi et al.: Hemodynamic evaluation of aortic aneurysms using FSI simulations
Matthias Freimuth et al.: Towards Computational Efficient Fully Coupled Aeroelastic Simulations of Turbomachinery Blades with TRACE and CalculiX
Ettore Fadiga et al.: An HPC Multi-Physics Framework for Next-Generation Industrial Aircraft Simulations

Tuesday, June 6, 16:30 - 18:30

Room: Imperial - Hall II, Session: IS14 - II

ECCOMAS Coupled Problems 2025

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The ECCOMAS Coupled Problems 2025 took place on Sardinia, Italy from May 26 to 29.

We organized a preCICE minisymposium: Multi-Physics and Multi-Scale Simulations with the Coupling Library preCICE (abstract) (IS042).

Conference proceedings

Feel free to ask questions in the corresponding thread of the forum.

Schedule of the Minisymposium

Our minisymposium took one session (IS042A) on Tuesday, May 27, 14:00-16:00 in the “Samarcanda” room. Presentations:

A quick introduction to the coupling library preCICE (Felix Neubauer, University of Stuttgart, Germany)
Magnetothermal Coupling with preCICE for Multiphysical Simulations of Electric Machines (Michael Wieshau, Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany)
Standardizing the preCICE ecosystem (Gerasimos Chourdakis, University of Stuttgart, Germany)
G+Smo-preCICE: Coupling the Isogeometric Analysis-Based Structure Solver G+Smo with preCICE for Advanced Multi-Physics Simulations (Jingya Li, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands)
Dynamic Meshes for Partitioned Multi-Physics Simulations in preCICE (Frédéric Simonis, University of Stuttgart, Germany)

If you are a speaker, see the documentation page Talk about your work for some guidelines on preparing a great talk for this audience.

ECCOMAS ECCM ECFD 2018

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The ECCOMAS ECCM-ECFD 2018 took place in Glasgow, UK, between 11-15 June, 2018.

We organized the minisymposium Multi-Physics Simulations with the Coupling Library preCICE, which had one session. This was the first preCICE-specific minisymposium at an ECCOMAS conference.

Schedule of the Minisymposium

Thursday, June 14, 16:30 - 18:30

B. Uekermann et al.: An introduction to the coupling library preCICE
K. Davis et al.: Numerical modelling of heart valves using open-source software with preCICE
G. Chourdakis et al.: Can my OpenFOAM solver easily be coupled with preCICE?
T. Reimann et al.: Multifield coupling of a fluid-structure-acoustics interaction problem in low-Mach number turbulent flow
N. Ebrahimi Pour et al.: Error investigation in coupled simulations using discontinuous galerkin method for discretisation
D. Cinquegrana et al.: Fluid Structure Interaction Problems with CIRA Structured CFD solver
B. Rüth et al.: Time stepping algorithms for partitioned multi-scale multi-physics in preCICE

ECCOMAS WCCM 2020

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The ECCOMAS WCCM 2020 was originally scheduled for summer 2020 in Paris, but was moved to January 11-15, 2021 in a virtual format. Continuing the tradition, we organized a minisymposium (MS202) “Multiphysics simulations with the coupling library preCICE”.

Conference proceedings

The minisymposium

Thanks to the WCCM organizers, authors were given access to their recorded talks to be shared with the public. The links of the titles below lead to the recordings on SlideLive.

ECCOMAS WCCM 2026

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The WCCM 2026 will take place in Munich, Germany, between July 19-24.

We are again organizing a preCICE minisymposium: Multi-Physics and Multi-Scale Simulations With The Coupling Library preCICE (MS070) and a social event before that.

Note that we are offering no training course this time. Consider joining the full online training in October.

Feel free to ask questions in the corresponding thread of the forum.

Schedule of the Minisymposium

The preCICE Minisymposium spreads over two sessions on Thursday, July 23.

Efficient and Flexible Partitioned Simulation of Fluid-Structure Interactions

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

PhD thesis, Department of Informatics, Technical University of Munich

Efficient Time Stepping in Partitioned Multi-Physics

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Poster at ISC 2018

Entwicklung eines XML-basierten Konfigurationsframeworks einer verteilten Multi-Physik Kopplungssoftware

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Bachelor’s thesis

Entwurf und Implementierung von Systemtests für eine verteilte Multi-Physik Simulationssoftware

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Bachelor’s thesis

Evaluation of erosion phenomena in a nozzle for Abrasive Water Jet Cutting

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

In an Abrasive Water Jet Cutting (AWJC) operation, a high-speed water jet is used to accelerate abrasive particles forming a turbulent mixture of water, entrained air, and abrasive powders traveling at hundreds of meters per second. The focusing tube (Nozzle) represents a key component, whose primary scope is to focus and stabilize the flow forming in the mixing chamber, in order to ensure optimal cutting performances of the device. Nevertheless, this nozzle often happens to be the first target of the erosive action of the flow. This phenomenon significantly shortens the operational life of a nozzle. The numerical approach proposed in this work aims to provide an insight to this very fast and disruptive phenomena that is difficult and expensive to be captured by purely experimental studies.

Evaluation of heart valve biomechanics

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

We are performing research into the design of artificial heart valves, by using experimental and numerical techniques. We are currently using preCICE to couple OpenFOAM (FOAM-Extend, self-written adapter with immersed boundary approach) and CalculiX (official adapter) to perform numerical simulations of the opening and closing of heart valves. We are using preCICE as it can handle numerical simulations of large sizes with ease as opposed to previous in-house couplers. Furthermore, the quick and efficient coupling techniques reduce our simulation time significantly.

ExaFSA -- Parallel Fluid-Structure-Acoustic Simulation

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

In H.-J. Bungartz, W.E. Nagel, P. Neumann, Severin Reiz, B. Uekermann (ed.), Software for Exascale Computing – SPPEXA 2016-2019, Lecture Notes in Computational Science and Engineering, Springer, Heidelberg, Berlin, accepted for publication

Exascale Simulation of Fluid-Structure-Acoustics Interaction

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

At TU Darmstadt we are interested in engineering applications that involve coupled fluid-structure problems, as well as aeroacoustics. Our research focuses on the development of our CFD/CAA solver FASTEST, which we couple via preCICE to the structural solver FEAP, and to the generic solver Ateles for an acoustic far-field. preCICE is particularly well-equipped for cutting-edge research: it is highly customizable to specific setups, it has a comprehensive debugging output that lets you find errors fast, and it offers high scalability that ensures applicability to large problems in future years. Especially important for us is the availability of advanced coupling schemes and post-processing methods. Over the several years of cooperation with the preCICE developers we have learned to appreciate their quick and competent response to support and feature requests.

Export configuration

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

You can export your coupling meshes to various formats. This is a great feature for debugging as you can monitor how preCICE maps and exchanges data. On this page, we explain how to configure such exporters.

Extend the OpenFOAM adapter

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

An overview of the OpenFOAM adapter’s architecture and which parts to modify if you want to add functionality.

Extending a CFD Lab Course by a preCICE Conjugate Heat Transfer Tutorial

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Master’s thesis, Department of Informatics, Technical University of Munich

Extending SU2 to Fluid-Structure Interaction via preCICE

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Bachelor’s thesis, Munich School of Engineering, Technical University of Munich

FEniCS–preCICE: Coupling FEniCS to other simulation software

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

FLEXCFD – Aeronautic fluid-structure interaction problems

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The project FLEXCFD aims to upgrade our in-house developed aerodynamic solver in order to simulate unsteady configurations with flexible surfaces in relative motion. Our main objective is to simulate dynamic fluid-structure interaction, with fluid and structural solvers synchronized by a partitioned approach. We foresee aeronautic applications, such as flexible aircraft and rotorcraft. We choose preCICE for several reasons: the open source environment, availability of non-linear structural dynamics, the possibility to test both explicit and implicit coupling, and the numerous already implemented interpolation and exchange methods for forces and deformations. Learn more

Fluid Structure Interaction Modelling of Flapping Wings

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Master’s thesis, Delft University of Technology

Fluid-Acoustics Interaction on Massively Parallel Systems

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

In M. Mehl, M. Bischoff and M. Schäfer (ed.), International Workshop on Computational Engineering CE 2014 of Lecture Notes in Computational Science and Engineering. Springer, Heidelberg, Berlin, 2015.

Fluid-structure interaction during sandwich manufacturing

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structural sandwich components made of continuous fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) are increasingly demanded by the automotive industry. In the Resin Transfer Molding (RTM) manufacturing process, a polymer foam core is embedded between dry fibers. During manufacturing, a liquid polymer resin infiltrates the fibers with high injection pressure, which leads to a deformation of the foam core. We simulate the mold filling with OpenFOAM and the foam core deformation with CalculiX. By coupling OpenFOAM and CalculiX via preCICE, we can now predict foam core deformation and mold filling behavior correctly. This allows us to optimize the manufacturing of high performance lightweight CFRP sandwich components. Learn more

Fluid-structure interaction in transonic and supersonic flows

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

In our research group, coupled simulations of thin flat wings and flexible structures in high-speed flows such as transonic and supersonic flows is conducted. Our fluid-structure interaction (FSI) analysis model is constructed based on the coupling between the compressible fluid solver SU2 and the structure solver CalculiX using preCICE. The unsteady behavior of the self-induced oscillation of a flat delta wing in a transonic flow is investigated with the FSI model. The oscillation of a flat delta wing starts with an initial disturbance and eventually leads to a large limit-cycle oscillation. The mechanism of coupling between elastic deformation and transonic flow near the wing which causes the limit-cycle oscillation is clarified by the FSI model. Learn more

Fluid-structure interaction modelling of biomimetics

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

CFD & FSI-RG at University of Strathclyde UK is a Computational Fluid Dynamics & Computational Structural Dynamics research group. Particular interests focus on the investigation for marine renewable energy devices, biomimetics and offshore fluid-structure-interaction research using numerical modelling methods. One of the numerical approaches we are currently using is to integrate our in-house CFD solver with the open-source structural analysis code CalculiX via preCICE, a coupling library for partitioned multi-physics simulations. We selected preCICE not only because of the high-level API features and the advanced coupling techniques, but more importantly, because the preCICE team is always helpful in providing relevant support. We are looking forward to further close collaboration with the preCICE developers in our research for marine bio-inspired and offshore ocean engineering applications. Read more

Fluid-structure interaction of inflatable wing sections

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Airborne wind energy is a novel renewable energy technology using tethered wings to harness wind energy at higher altitudes and with less material. At TU Delft, we are investigating the aerodynamics of inflatable membrane wings which are highly flexible and therefore exhibit a strong coupling between fluid and structure. In our fluid-structure interaction (FSI) simulation framework, we use OpenFOAM to calculate the aerodynamic load distribution on the wing and mem4py or, alternatively, MBDyn to calculate the structural deformation. We use preCICE to couple the solvers and implemented the preCICE adapters in Python for mem4py and MBDyn. Thanks to preCICE, we achieved accurate, stable and efficient fluid-structure coupling with a small piece of code (less than 100 lines).

Fluid-structure interaction on flapping wings

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The flow around flapping wings allows them to create high lift using various of unsteady flow phenomena. Adding flexibility to the wing can help to reduce drag and increase performance. At TU Delft, we are investigating flapping wings and the implication of flexibility in these wings. The high, nonlinear deformations of these wings require a strongly coupled simulation to find a solution. For this means a framework is set up using CalculiX and OpenFOAM, coupled with preCICE. For this work, the OpenFOAM adapter was extended to support force and displacement coupling in FSI simulations. The large number of coupling functionalities in preCICE gives the user the opportunity to build advanced and scalable simulations with ease. Learn more

Fluid-structure-electricity coupling for flexible wave energy converters

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Inspired by the streamlined bodies and compliant fins of aquatic animals, a new generation of adaptive, flexible materials has gained significant attention in the development of Wave Energy Converters (WECs) over the past decade. These materials possess the distinctive ability to deform in response to external loading, allowing WEC structures to adapt dynamically to the marine environment. Incorporating flexibility into WEC design offers several advantages, including improved survivability, enhanced hydrodynamic performance, and the potential for integrated energy harvesting mechanisms.

Fortran bindings

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

This section lists the various language bindings of preCICE and describes how to fetch and install them.

Fortran bindings

These languages are natively supported by preCICE and are part of library binaries you already have. For more details please read linking to preCICE.

Fortran module

In case you prefer to use the fortran module system, we also provide a fortran module. While this is the more comfortable way to use preCICE in modern fortran code, you do need to first build this module and link it to your code. See the bundled example for details.

Frequently asked questions

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Search and filter frequently asked questions on the preCICE Discourse forum.

No results found.

FSI coupling between OpenFOAM and MBDyn of a cycloidal rotor

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

In this project a FSI coupling was established to investigate the influence of rotor blade deformation of cycloidal rotors and its effect on the rotor efficiency. The preCICE OpenFOAM adapter uses the pointDisplacement function of OpenFOAM to couple motion data. However, simulating rotating bodies of a cyclorotor is not yet possible with this approach in OpenFOAM. Therefore an additional OpenFOAM class was added to couple the rotation motion directly from the MBDyn adapter to OpenFOAM.

FSI coupling with multibody dynamics

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

When fluid-structure interaction involves slender or flat structures, it is interesting to apply reduced dimensionality models (e.g. shells, or beams) to perform such computations. We coupled MBDyn (an open source multibody dynamics software developed at Politecnico of Milan) to preCICE within a master thesis project, exploiting the C++ interface provided by MBDyn. We validated the set-up in the incompressible regime coupling MBDyn and OpenFOAM and comparing our results with the well-known Turek & Hron benchmarks, which proved to be challenging because of added mass instability issues. Some preliminary results can be found in the thesis, while an extensive validation has been described in a conference paper. Learn more

FSI Simulations of High Impact Loads on Structures

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Understanding high energetic explosive impact loads on structures is fundamental in risk assessment and development of mitigation plans. Using preCICE as a coupling platform, we successfully coupled our in-house unstructured compressible flow solver (muSICS) with an opensource structural FEM solver (CalculiX). Acting as a plug-in to existing solvers, preCICE provided a very efficient coupling mechanism for fluid-structure interaction applications. Collaborating with the developer from preCICE team has been instrumental for us to further develop our inhouse capability for this type of simulation platform. We would continue and look forward to our collaboration with the preCICE team for future applications. Learn more

FSI*ce -- A Modular Simulation Environment for Fluid-Structure Interactions

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

In A. Meister, M. Schäfer and S. Turek (ed.), Fluid-Structure Interaction: Theory, Numerics, and Applications, p. 115–130. kassel university press, Kassel, 2009

General coding conventions

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

This page describes general and coding conventions used in preCICE.

Generate PDF Documentation

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Build the complete documentation PDF with Hugo and Prince.

Geometric Aspects of Code Coupling in Magnetic Fusion Applications

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Master’s thesis, Department of Informatics, Technical University of Munich

Get CalculiX

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Building CalculiX itself can already be quite a challenge. That’s why we collected here some recipe.

Get the CalculiX adapter

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The CalculiX adapter provides the executable ccx_preCICE. You can get the adapter either from a Debian package (on Ubuntu), or build it from source.

Get the deal.II adapter

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Use CMake to install deal.II and build the individual programs.

Get the DuMuX adapter

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Get DuMuX and preCICE, and build the adapter with dunecontrol.

Get the Micro Manager

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Install the Micro Manager by running pip install micro-manager-precice.

Get the OpenFOAM adapter

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Get the code from GitHub and run ./Allwmake. If this fails, look into wmake.log and ldd.log.

Global data

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Define and exchange global data not accociated to a mesh.

Guidelines for application cases

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Quality guidelines and standards for application cases

High Dimensional Uncertainty Quantification of Fluid-Structure Interaction

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Master’s thesis, Department of Informatics, Technical University of Munich

Hybrid simulation methods for wind modelling in urban areas

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

We are developing a two-way-coupled solver for urban wind modelling where the simulation region is split into a region of interest, modelled by an in-house lattice Boltzmann solver run on GPU, and the remainder of the domain, modelled by the finite volume solver OpenFOAM. The hybrid model combines the characteristics of both solvers to produce an efficient tool for simulation of large-scale geometries with specific local regions of high interest. preCICE is an essential tool to enable the coupling of the two solvers due to its ease of use, robustness and open source community. preCICE provides clear documentation with step by step tutorials, different coupling and interpolation schemes and it requires only minimal modifications within the coupled codes. Learn more

Hybrid-dimensional coupling for flow in deformable fractures

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Simulating flow in deformable fractures embedded in a porous medium is a challenging numerical task, especially when the aspect ratio of the fracture is large (length » aperture). We respect this in our model by using a hybrid-dimensional formulation to reduce the flow problem’s dimension. Discretization of the model is done in FEniCS as it is easy to use through its Python interface. preCICE allows us to couple our codes nicely due to the available Python bindings. Additionally, the architecture of preCICE allows us to immediately use FEniCS’ parallel computing capabilities which are mandatory for large scale simulation. Learn more

iacm WCCM 2024

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The WCCM 2024 / PANACM 2024 took place in Vancouver, Canada, between July 21-26.

We organized a preCICE minisymposium: Multi-Physics and Multi-Scale Simulations with the Coupling Library preCICE (0415). Schedule:

Session 1 (TS7, Wed 9:45-11:45):
- A quick introduction to the coupling library preCICE and the minisymposium (Gerasimos Chourdakis, University of Stuttgart)
- Micro manager: a tool for multiscale coupling with preCICE (Ishaan Desai, University of Stuttgart)
- Gismo & WaterLily adapters for the preCICE coupling library (Marin Lauber, Delft University of Technology)
- Overview of multiphysics coupling efforts at LLNL for advanced energy applications (Jerome Solberg, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)
Session 2 (TS8, Wed 14:00-16:00):
- Speed up the multi-scale simulations with preCICE and MicroManager: results for a porous media flow (Jun Chen, University of Stuttgart)
- Flexible macro-micro coupling for spatial simulation of the liver (Steffen Gerhäusser, University of Stuttgart)
- A coupled two-muscle-one-tendon model of the agonist-antagonist myoneural interface (Carme Homs Pons, University of Stuttgart)

Next to the minisymposium, we organized a full-day training course in the context of the conference and we contributed a general poster about preCICE and the new preECO project.

Improving the performance of the partitioned QN-ILS procedure for fluid-structure interaction problems: filtering

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

In Computers and Structures, Volume 171, p. 9–17, Elsevier.

In-situ data visualization for visual data comparison

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

One big challenge when working with (simulation) data is the visual comparison of data that stems from different sources. For simulations, this may be data that stems from different software packages and different discretizations. This occurs when one carries out a benchmark study as in Berre et al., for example. The different approaches for solving the same problem usually lead to different types of output file formats and output meshes where information is stored at different locations. Therefore, the members of project area D of the CRC1313 investigate how preCICE’s capabilities can be used to visualize solutions on a predefined reference mesh. In the current prototype, data from a DuMuX simulation is transferred and mapped to the reference mesh via preCICE to be visualized by inpreCICE. This allows for in-situ visualizations and free choice of the visualization mesh independent of the actual mesh used in the simulation. Learn more

Initialization in existing MPI environment

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

preCICE uses MPI for communication between different participants (and also for communication between ranks of the same participant). So are there any problems if the solver that you intend to couple also already uses MPI (e.g. for parallelization)? Who should initialize MPI? Who should finalize MPI? This is what we discuss here.

Installing preCICE

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

You always need to install the preCICE library and you have a few ways to do this: using a binary package, building from source manually, or building using Spack. You may additionally need to install bindings for Python, Fortran, Matlab or Julia separately.

Introduction to configuration

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The preCICE configuration file is structured in several sections. It is important to understand what the section are and how they are connected. On this page, we explain you that.

Julia bindings

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Use add PreCICE to install the Julia language bindings from the official Julia registry

Just-in-time data mapping

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

You can read and write data at dynamic coordinates instead of static vertex IDs using specific optional API functions.

Landing page layout

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

So you want to edit the landing page

The preCICE documentation uses Bootstrap 5.3.8 with Hugo templates. The landing page markup is in layouts/index.html, with its presentation kept consistent with the rest of the site.

Style sheets

The original theme consists (mainly) of

customstyles.css: main style sheet
theme-blue.css: assembly of color-affecting styles

For the preCICE site these have been adapted to

customstyles.css: as before
customstyles-precice.css: material changes to the above style sheet
theme-precice.css: adaptation of color schemes
landing-page.css: styles specific to the landing page.

Full-bleed layout

Currently the landing uses a full-bleed layout with three different background colours, white (default), light blue and dark blue. The default white (i.e. no background-color set) is implemented through:

License information

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

preCICE is free/open-source software, without imposing any license restrictions on the software you couple.

Limitations and assumptions

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

In case you want to use the adapter for your own work, consider the following notes.

Number of interface meshes

You can only define one read and one write mesh per deal.II executable. On the one hand, extending this is not in particular difficult and could be done in the Adapter class itself, but since we have only FSI (solid part) ready-to-run tutorials and programs, it should be sufficient to summarize different boundary parts into a single mesh (in deal.II terminology boundary_id()) for writing and reading, respectively. The applied boundary conditions are on each write and on each read mesh the same. If this is not sufficient, you may want to consider more than one deal.II participant.

Linking to preCICE

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Linking against preCICE requires to pass two set of flags to two programs. The compiler requires information on where to find the preCICE headers. The linker requires the name of the library as well as its location.

CMake

This is the preferred method of linking to preCICE. preCICE provides a precice-Config file which contains all required information to the build system.

Linking to preCICE from a CMake project is simple. Use find_package(precice) and link precice::precice to your target:

Literature guide

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

A guide to the main reference literature for each component and feature of preCICE

Logging

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Overview

Logging in preCICE is configured using the XML or other configuration files. Some log levels are disabled based on the build type of the project and some terminate the program. This is the full overview of all logs and assertions with decreasing severity:

Type	Enabled	Back-end	Description
Unreachable	in debug builds	cerr	Terminates the program when reaching impossible states.
Assertion	in debug builds	cerr	Ensures expected program state. Terminates the program.
Errors	always	Logger	User-errors only! Terminates the program
Warnings	always	Logger	Notifies about worrying states or deprecated configuration options.
Info	always on primary rank	Logger	Notifies about the state of the program and gives indication of what is happening. Visible only on rank 0
Debug	in debug builds	Logger	Low-level information useful for developing and bug-search.
Trace	in debug builds	Logger	Function invocation information. Last resort before using a debugger. Sometimes debugging may also not be an option.

Debug output and checks

Before using any of debugging/logging methods below you should set PRECICE_TRACE() at the beginning of the function.

Logging configuration

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

By default, preCICE provides a meaningful logging output to stdout. In case you want to modify the default logging, this page describes how to do this.

Logging in the Micro Manager

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The Micro Manager logs relevant information and adaptivity metrics.

Loose Coupling of Isolated Rotorblade Rotorcraft CFD/CSD Simulations using preCICE

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Master’s thesis, Department of Informatics, Technical University of Munich

Mapping configuration

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

When coupling two participants at a common coupling interface, in general, the two surface meshes do not match. Therefore, preCICE provides data mapping methods to map coupling data from one mesh to the other. On this page, we explain how to configure such data mapping methods.

Matlab bindings

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Clone the repository precice/matlab-bindings and run the installation script with Matlab

Mesh exchange example

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

If you struggle with which mesh you should use where in the configuration and whether a mapping is read or write, you might find this example helpful.

Moving or changing meshes

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

preCICE supports ALE-methods, direct-mesh-access, and pseudo-meshes to handle most scenarios of moving or changing meshes. A remeshing API is on the roadmap and being actively developed.

Multi coupling configuration

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

If you want to couple more than two participants, there are two options: You can combine multiple normal coupling schemes (composition) or you can use a fully-implicit multi-coupling scheme. On this page, we explain both options.

Multiphysics modeling with the preCICE coupling library (training session)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

15th OpenFOAM Workshop, Arlington, VA, USA (online).

Naming conventions

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

This page describes naming conventions for the preCICE ecosystem.

Notes on CMake

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

General information on CMake

CMake is a tool for build system configuration.
It generates a chosen build system in the directory it was executed in. The build system to generate can be specified using the -G flag which defaults to Makefile. A list of all supported generators (e.g. for IDEs) can be found in the CMake documentation.
Use the console tool ccmake or the gui cmake-guifor a more comfortable configuration.
The generated build system automatically reconfigures cmake when necessary.
It respects your environment variables CXX, CXX_FLAGS, … during configuration.
Please use them to set your compiler and warning level of choice.
Invoke cmake with -DVariable=Value to set the cmake-internal variable Variable to Value.
A complete list of variables recognised by cmake can be found in the CMake documentation.
Use -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE to specify what type of build you would like Debug, Release, RelWithDebInfo, MinSizeRel
CMake will select appropriate flag for you (e.g. -g, -O2). Specifying no BUILD_TYPE results in an un-optimised non-debug build.
The generated build system knows where the source directory is. It is thus possible to have multiple configurations using the same (e.g. build/debug/, build/release/)
Use -DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS=ON to build shared libraries, -DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS=OFF to build static libraries. In preCICE, we default to ON since v2.3.
To use ccacheor distccwith cmake please set the variable CXX_COMPILER_LAUNCHER.
Use -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/path/to/dir/ to specify the install prefix. Default is /usr/local on unix. Read more

Official preCICE Adapters for Standard Open-Source Solvers

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Conference Proceedings at the 7th GACM Colloquium on Computational Mechanics for Young Scientists from Academia

OpenFOAM support

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Recent OpenFOAM.com versions work out-of-the-box. Recent OpenFOAM.org versions are also supported, but you will need a version-specific branch.

OpenFOAM-preCICE: Coupling OpenFOAM with External Solvers for Multi-Physics Simulations

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Optimization

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

This tutorial states when and how to optimize code written for preCICE. In general, the code development process looks as follows:

Implement new functionalities with best-practices of OOP.
Test the implemented functionality for correctness.
Profile the code and implemented functionality with a suitable profiling tool.
Optimize the implementation based on profiling and start from point 2 again.

The important message is that code implementation and code optimization are separated from each other.

Optimization of thermal groundwater heat pump usage in Munich

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The GEO.KW project aims to improve the efficiency of thermal groundwater use in urban environments. Careful placement and usage of groundwater heat pumps is critical for optimal use of the shallow subsurface. An optimization tool is being developed that couples a subsurface flow solver (PFLOTRAN ) with an energy system optimization solver, (urbs ). This presents a unique coupling problem, where completely different physics are involved in each solver. We use preCICE as it already has the required coupling schemes, acceleration schemes, and parallel communication and data mapping. We saved time by using the functionality already available in preCICE for software coupling, allowing us to focus on our models and not reinventing the “coupling” wheel. Learn more

Organizing a preCICE workshop

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While the preCICE workshop lasts a week, it takes several months of preparation to make it successful. In this preparation, the complete preCICE team plays an active role, while the event management role rotates, to integrate different perspectives and to distribute the load. In cases where this makes sense, we organize the workshop together with local user groups, opening further networking opportunities for the community.

In this page, we document common steps and lessons learned, aiming to make onboarding of new organizers easier. Besides, who remembers what material the registration desk needed last year, if we cannot even remember what we had for lunch?

Organizing software community workshops: Experiences from three independent simulation software projects

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Output files

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During runtime, preCICE writes different output files. On this page, we give an overview of these files and their content.

Overview of adapters

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There are various codes - free and proprietary ones - currently coupled with preCICE. If you want to add your code here, please let us know.

Official adapters

We host adapters for the following codes in the preCICE GitHub organization and we maintain them to work with the latest release of preCICE (unless stated otherwise).

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Sorry, but the page you were trying to view does not exist.

Try searching for it or looking at the URL to see if it looks correct.

If you think something has gone wrong please contact us or fix it yourself.

Parallel Coupling Numerics for Partitioned Fluid-Structure Interaction Simulations

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Computers and Mathematics with Applications, Volume 71(4), p. 869––891, Elsevier.

Partitioned Fluid Structure Interaction: Coupling FEniCS and OpenFOAM via preCICE

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Partitioned Fluid-Structure Interaction Coupling Methods for Black-Box Solvers

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In M. Behr, J. Lang, E. Rank and M. Schäfer (ed.), 2nd International Conference on Computational Engineering (ICCE 2011), p. 76–77. typographics GmbH, Darmstadt, October 2011

Partitioned Fluid-Structure Interaction on Massively Parallel Systems

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PhD thesis, Department of Informatics, Technical University of Munich

Partitioned Fluid-Structure-Acoustics Interaction on Distributed Data: Coupling via preCICE

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In H.-J. Bungartz, P. Neumann and W. E. Nagel (ed.), Software for Exascale Computing – SPPEXA 2013-2015, Volume 113 of Lecture Notes in Computational Science and Engineering, p. 239––266. Springer, Heidelberg, Berlin.

Partitioned Fluid-Structure-Acoustics Interaction on Distributed Data: Numerical Results and Visualization

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Partitioned Multi-Physics on Massively Parallel Systems

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In P. Bastian, D. Kranzlmüller, H. Brüchle, and M. Brehm (ed.), High Performance Computing in Science and Engineering – Garching/Munich 2018, p. 126-127.

Partitioned multirate coupling schemes for the heat equation in preCICE

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Poster at the 2nd Workshop on Scientific Computing in Sweden 2018

Partitioned Simulation of Fluid-Structure Interaction on Cartesian Grids

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In H.-J. Bungartz, M. Mehl and M. Schäfer (ed.), Fluid-Structure Interaction – Modelling, Simulation, Optimisation, Part II, Volume 73 of LNCSE, p. 255–284. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, October 2010

Performance analysis

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preCICE comes with an internal performance analysis framework

Performanzanalyse und Optimierung einer verteilten Multi-Physik Simulationssoftware

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Master’s thesis

Porting adapters between breaking releases

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We use semantic versioning for preCICE, which means that you can extract useful information from the version number. If the first digit (major version) does not change, this means that you don’t need to update your adapter or (usually) your preCICE configuration file. However, when the major version number increases, this means that you need to update your code as well (we plan for a major version change once every 2-3 years). We recommend using the latest stable versions of preCICE and the corresponding bindings and adapters.

Porting from 1.x to 2.x

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This guide helps you to upgrade from preCICE 1.x to preCICE 2.x.

Porting from 2.x to 3.x

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This guide helps you to upgrade from preCICE 2.x to preCICE 3.x.

preCICE -- A Fully Parallel Library for Multi-Physics Surface Coupling

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In Computers and Fluids, Volume 141, p. 250––258. Elsevier.

preCICE – A versatile partioned coupling library

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Poster presented at the SIAM Conference on Computational Science and Engineering 2015

preCICE Coupling for the Final Phase Simulator

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The Final Phase Simulator (FiPS) is used within ArianeGroup for high fidelity coupled simulations of spacecraft. Through the coupling of CFD, rigid body dynamics, and thermodynamics a simulation environment is created in which flight controllers are tested in a closed loop manner. To date FiPS has relied on a staggered and weakly coupled approach for most industrial applications, and has further relied on bespoke coupled solutions.

Under the EFFEKT project, part-funded by the DLR, ArianeGroup is piloting preCICE, for industrial applications, as a potential ‘core’ coupling engine within FiPS allowing more advanced coupling techniques to be used. This project seeks to demonstrate parity for industrial hydraulic simulations of multiple propellant tanks coupled to a rigid body model. Under induced loading conditions, propellant slosh prediction will be investigated and compared with existing data and reference solutions. Additionally, it is an objective to demonstrate a more modular approach to simulation environment construction via the ‘swapping out’ of CFD codes for slosh prediction.

preCICE online training 2026

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In October 5-9, 2026, we are organizing the first online preCICE training, mainly targeting participants in the US, Canada, and Latin America (time: 12–3 pm EDT (UTC-4)) that cannot easily travel to the preCICE Workshop – with the next workshop being in March 2027. Over the span of one week, the training will include elements of the longer training course of the preCICE Workshop, invited talks, and news from the preCICE developers.

preCICE training

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A hands-on introduction to preCICE, recommended for new users that want to learn how to couple their own codes and beyond.

preCICE v2: A sustainable and user-friendly coupling library [version 2; peer review: 2 approved]

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preCICE workshop 2020

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Thank you everybody who helped or participated in the workshop. After all the positive feedback, we are confident to repeat the workshop in 2021. Some of the feedback:

Fantastic organisation throughout. Great efforts. Loved to meet people in different fields and also in similar fields.
Thanks for the great workshop in the true sense of this word!
All in all nice workshop!

preCICE workshop 2021

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The 2nd preCICE Workshop was held virtually through the University of Stuttgart, between February 22-25, 2021. The workshop is a coming together of the preCICE community to share ideas, experiences and knowledge about using preCICE, and to learn from others in the process. Registration for the workshop is closed.

If you have any questions regarding the workshop, please contact us at precice2021@ipvs.uni-stuttgart.de.

preCICE workshop 2022

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The 3rd preCICE Workshop was held virtually through SimTech and the University of Stuttgart, on February 21-24, 2022. The workshop is a coming together of the preCICE community to share ideas, experiences and knowledge about using preCICE, and to learn from others in the process.

Registration is closed.

If you have any questions regarding the workshop, please contact us at precice2022@ipvs.uni-stuttgart.de.

preCICE workshop 2023

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Note: This workshop is now over. See you next in SIAM CSE23 with several talks, a poster, and two minitutorial sessions, as well as in ECCOMAS COUPLED23 with a minisymposium.

The 4th preCICE Workshop was held in-presence at the campus Garching of the Technical University of Munich (Leibniz Supercomputing Center), on February 13-16, 2023. The workshop is a coming together of the preCICE community to share ideas, experiences and knowledge about using preCICE, and to learn from others in the process.

preCICE workshop 2024

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Note: This workshop is now over. See you next in the preCICE minisymposium in COUPLED 2025. The next preCICE workshop will be in Hamburg, on September 8-12, 2025.

The 5th preCICE Workshop was held at the University of Stuttgart, in collaboration with SimTech, on September 24-27, 2024. Like in former workshops, the workshop consisted of a hands-on training course, followed by several talks and interactive sessions. A new part was added to the hands-on course, showcasing a fluid-structure interaction simulation with CalculiX and OpenFOAM, and was very well received by the participants. Some other highlights of the workshop were the poster session, that took place for the very first time, and the World Café, which this year revolved around the implementation of guidelines for adapters and application cases.

preCICE workshop 2025

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The 6th preCICE Workshop was held at the Helmut Schmidt University / University of the German Federal Armed Forces Hamburg on September 8-12, 2025, co-organized by the local user group. The workshop is a coming together of the preCICE community to share ideas, experiences and knowledge about using preCICE, and to learn from others in the process. Like always, we had user and developer talks, hands-on training sessions, discussions with the developers about your applications and use cases, and plenty of opportunities for networking. Read more about how a preCICE workshop looks like.

preCICE workshop 2027

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The 7th preCICE Workshop will be held for the first time outside Germany, at the Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands, on March 1-5, 2027, co-organized by Matthias Möller and his team within the Numerical Analysis group and the G+Smo community. The workshop is a coming together of the preCICE community to share ideas, experiences and knowledge about using preCICE, and to learn from others in the process. Like always, we plan to have user and developer talks, hands-on training sessions, discussions with the developers about your applications and use cases, and plenty of opportunities for networking. Read more about how a preCICE workshop looks like.

preCICE: A dependable open-source coupling library for partitioned multi-physics simulations

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Poster at the deRSE19, Potsdam, Germany.

Prepare micro simulation

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Create an Python-importable class from your micro simulation code.

Previous versions

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Archives of this documentation

Privacy policy

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1. Introduction

1.1 We are committed to safeguarding the privacy of our website visitors (precice.org and precice.discourse.group), service users (users of the preCICE software and participants of preCICE events).

1.2 This policy applies where we are acting as a data controller with respect to the personal data of such persons; in other words, where we determine the purposes and means of the processing of that personal data.

1.3 In this policy, “we”, “us” and “our” refer to the preCICE team. For more information about us, see Section 14.

Publication strategy

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Publication of distribution on DaRUS

For every new (major) distribution release, we publish an archive of all included sources on DaRUS. As an example, see the v2104.0 data set.

Authorship

Authors of the data set are:

All current maintainers
Everybody who significantly contributed to the delta between the last and this major distribution release. Significant contributions need to go beyond good first issues. Actively maintaining a component or significant reviewing does also qualify as significant contribution.
Supervisors who actively contributed ideas to the delta between the last and this major distribution release

Order of authors: maintainers are listed first followed by everybody else, both in alphabetical order.

Python bindings

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Use pip3 install pyprecice to install the python language bindings from PyPI

Quasi-Newton Waveform Iteration for Partitioned Surface-Coupled Multiphysics Applications

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Radial Basis Function Interpolation for Black-Box Multi-Physics Simulations

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Conference Proceedings at the ECCOMAS Coupled Problems 2017

RBF shape calculator

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Selecting an appropriate shape parameter for radial basis function mappings can be a bit tricky.

To simplify this task, you can find the script rbfShape.py in the preCICE repository.

Given the width of the mesh and the amount of vertices to cover by the support radius, this script calculates an appropriate shape parameter for Gaussian basis-functions. The script also allows to specify a custom decay.

This solves the following equation:

$$\text{shape} = \frac{\sqrt{-log(\text{decay})}}{\text{vertices} \cdot \text{meshwidth}}$$

Release strategy

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Terminology

Release: A tagged release which is visible in git as tag and in github as release
Hotfix: same as a release but modifies a single master version without side effects
Release branch: a branch in a repository, based on develop.

Dependency tree

Release procedure

Repository R needs to release a new version V The name of the release branch is “R-vV” pyprecice-v3.4.1.1
Prepare the release in the branch (bump version etc)
Find R in the dependency tree and the subtree with root R
Every R’ in subtree (R != R) needs to create a release branch with the name deduced above. The branch should be based on develop of the repository R’. The base commit of the release branch is the last commit to be released (feature freeze).
Run systemtests with the subtree of R using release branches and the rest using
1. develop (do all the develop versions still work together)
2. master (do all the releases still work together)
Make sure everything is working
Release from R down to the leaves of the dependency tree if necessary.

Hotfix procedure

Repository R needs to release a new version V The name of the release branch is “R-vV” pyprecice-v3.4.1.1
Prepare the release in the branch (bump version etc)
Find R in the dependency tree
Run systemtests with R using release branches and the rest using master
Make sure everything is working
Release R

Release schedule

The core library repository follows semantic versioning.

Release workflow

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We keep a detailed step, by step guide of the release-process in our repository:

You may also have a look at our release strategy.

Roadmap

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We are actively developing preCICE. These are some of the features you can expect in the future.

Robust Quasi-Newton Methods for Partitioned Fluid-Structure Simulations

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Master’s thesis, Institute of Parallel and Distributed Systems, University of Stuttgart

Run the Micro Manager

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Run the Micro Manager from the terminal with a configuration file as input argument or from a Python script.

Running and writing tests

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Overview

Testing preCICE is not straight-forward as we need to run tests in a parallel environment. Hence, we needed to customize some parts of the framework. The main components form layers of executables.

Component	What it does	How to run it
CTest	Runs pre-defined tests	`make test` or `ctest`
MPI	Executes the test framework in parallel	`mpirun -n4 ./testprecice`
Boost.test	The framework used to implement the tests	`./testprecice --list_content`
TestContext	The code extension used to express test parallelism

There are generally three kinds of tests:

Running on a local machine

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Run your preCICE simulation on your local machine.

Running simulations

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Modify SU2 configuration file, specify interfaces by SU2 markers, run SU2 either serial or parallel

Running simulations overview

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You got your solvers installed and your case configured? It’s finally time to run your simulation.

Here you will find additional resources on how to:

run the simulation on your machine.
understand the output files generated by preCICE.
setup the simulation on a distributed cluster.
create jobfiles for SLURM.

Running with two-level parallelization

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Micro Manager supports MPI parallelized micro solvers with multi-level parallelization.

Rust bindings

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Use cargo add precice to install the rust language bindings from crate.io

Scalable coupled simulations with OpenFOAM and other solvers

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Poster at the Computational Science at Scale (CoSaS) 2018

Simulation of flow-acoustic-structural interactions in duct systems

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To study the influence of flow-induced vibrations on noise mitigation solutions in duct systems like ventilation systems, the interactions between the flow-acoustic field inside the duct and the structural vibrations of the flexible components need to be understood. Therefore, I coupled an in-house MPI-parallelized aeroacoustics solver for the linearized Euler equations to an in-house structural solver for linear elasto-dynamics. The coupling is managed by the preCICE library, which offers an excellent framework for coupling time domain solvers. Learn more

Simulation of temperatures on the moon with THerMoS

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We are developing THerMoS, a tool for simulation of temperatures on the surface of the Moon including rovers and astronauts operating on the lunar surface. Ray tracing on a single or multiple GPUs with NVIDIA Optix calculates the heat transfer by radiation between surface elements, while a MATLAB routine solves the equation of heat diffusion. preCICE couples the two domains and handles the communication between MATLAB and NVIDIA Optix. Other solvers and simulation approaches (instead of MATLAB and NVIDIA Optix) are going to be tested in the future with the aid of the flexibility that preCICE offers. Learn more

SLURM sessions

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Running partitioned simulations on a cluster managed by SLURM requires special treatment of the provided MPI machines.

Snapshot Computation

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Set up the Micro Manager snapshot computation.

Special systems

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This page contains instructions for building preCICE on special systems, being clusters and supercomputers.

The systems in the archived section are no longer operational. The instructions may still be valuable for unlisted systems.

Note: We encourage users to actively contribute to this page! If your system is not listed, please feel encouraged to add instructions for it!

Active systems

HAWK (HPE Apollo/AMD, Stuttgart)

Building

The following steps explain how to install preCICE on HAWK with PETSc and MPI using the system standard HPE MPI implementation:

Standardization example - DuMux adapter

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A review of the DuMux adapter using the contributing guidelines. This is a work-in-progress that will eventually be moved.

Standardization example - ISSM adapter

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A review of the ISSM adapter using the contributing guidelines. This is a work-in-progress that will eventually be moved.

Standardization example - OpenDiHu adapter

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A review of the OpenDiHu adapter using the contributing guidelines. This is a work-in-progress that will eventually be moved.

Standardization example - OpenFOAM adapter

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A review of the OpenFOAM adapter using the contributing guidelines. This is a work-in-progress that will eventually be moved.

Step 1 – Preparation

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If you want to couple your own code you need to properly understand it. That is why, in this first step, we have a look at your own code. We discuss what you need to do to prepare the code for coupling.

Step 2 – Steering methods

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In this step, you get to know the most important API functions of preCICE: initialize, advance, and finalize.

Step 3 – Mesh and data access

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In this step, we see how to define coupling meshes and access coupling data.

Step 5 – Non-matching time step sizes

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In this step, you learn how preCICE handles non-matching time step sizes and a few more things about simulation time.

Step 6 – Implicit coupling

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In previous steps, we only considered explicit coupling. We now move onto implicit coupling, so sub-iterating each time step multiple times until a convergence threshold is reached. This stabilizes strongly-coupled problems.

Step 7 - Data initialization

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As default values, preCICE assumes that all coupling variables are zero initially. For fluid-structure interaction, for example, this means that the structure is in its reference state. Sometimes, you want to change this behavior – for instance, you may want to restart your simulation.

Step 8 – Mesh connectivity

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So far, our coupling mesh is only a cloud of vertices. This is sufficient for most of the numerical methods that preCICE offers. For some features, however, preCICE also needs to know how vertices are connected to each other. In this step, you learn how to define this so-called mesh connectivity.

Step 9 – Gradient data

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So far, our mesh contains only data. This is sufficient for most of the numerical methods that preCICE offers. For nearest-neighbor-gradient mapping, however, preCICE also requires additional gradient data information. In this step, you learn how to add gradient data to the mesh.

Structural multi-model coupling with CalculiX and preCICE

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Master’s thesis, Department of Informatics, Technical University of Munich and Uppsala University

System packages

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For some systems, preCICE is available in the form of a pre-built package or a package recipe. These packages are built with enabled Python actions, MPI communication, and PETSc mapping. This section lists systems and instructions on how to install these packages.

Repology compiles a list of packages and versions in distribution repositories. This contains a good overview of packages also in community repositories. Note, however that Ubuntu and Debian are absent from this list as official packages for those Distros would lag too far behind in time.

Terminology

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We often refer to the following terms, but they may not already be clear.

The CalculiX adapter

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The CalculiX adapter can be used to couple CalculiX to CFD solvers for FSI or CHT application or even to couple CalculiX to itself.

The Coupling Library preCICE -- Past, Present and Future

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In A. Bode, H.-J. Bungartz and U. Rüde (ed.), Quartl, Volume 80, p. 11–20.

The deal.II adapter

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Coupled structural solver written with the C++ finite element library deal.II

The G+Smo adapter

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The G+Smo adapter can be used to couple G+Smo to CFD solvers for FSI applications or even to couple G+Smo to itself for advanced structural simulations.

The Nutils adapter

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There is currently not really such a thing as a Nutils adapter. Coupling Nutils is so simple that directly calling the preCICE Python API from the application scripts is the way to go.

The preCICE CLI

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The preCICE CLI provides a unified interface to the main preCICE tools.

The preCICE distribution

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A frozen state of component versions that work together.

The preCICE documentation

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This page gives an overview of the complete preCICE documentation, including building, configuration, literature, the API, and much more.

The preCICE Workshop

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The preCICE Workshop is the place to be for everyone working on or simply interested to start with preCICE. We are meeting every year since 2020 to train new people, collect feedback, and work together, trying to make every year’s event better than the previous one. Read about our experiences or about organizing a preCICE Workshop.

More than a conference

Of course, there are talks. We typically have a single track of user and developer talks, focusing on news, novel applications, and methods. At the same time, we give everyone the chance to introduce their research via quick introduction talks or other means (posters, forum posts).

Theoretic details of coupled deal.II codes

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Since deal.II is a library and you are free to implement your own stuff, this section provides details about the implemented solver analogous to the commented tutorial programs in deal.II. In case you want to modify this solver or use it for your own project. The linear elastic solver was built on the step-8 tutorial program of the deal.II library, which deals with linear elastostatics. The nonlinear elastic solver was built on the Quasi static Finite strain Compressible Elasticity code gallery example. A lot of aspects are already explained there and in the source code files. However, these programs deal with elastodynamics. Therefore, we need to consider a time discretization.

Time stepping algorithms for partitioned multi-scale multi-physics in preCICE

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in Proceedings of 6th Conference on Computational Mechanics / 7th Conference on Computational Fluid Dynamics (ECCM 6 / ECFD 7) 2018

Timings in preCICE

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Usage

preCICE includes functionality to measure timings of sections in the code. This is based on the EventTimings project.

To add an event to a piece of code:

#include "utils/Event.hpp"
create an event

An event is stopped when it goes out of scope. You may also manually stop an event.

Example:

#include "utils/Event.hpp"
using precice::utils::Event;

// An event automatically stopps when it leaves scope
void bar()
{
 Event e("init");
 // do some stuff
}

// You can manually stop it to measure a section only
void foo()
{ 
 // ...

 Event e("selection");
 // do some stuff to measure
 e.stop();

 // ...
}

Fundamental events

Events are grouped into two classes:

Tooling

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Setting up pre-commit

To use, install pre-commit and run pre-commit install at the root of the project. You can now force the formatting on all files with pre-commit run -a.

This will also run all pre-commit hooks before each commit, preventing dirty commits in the repository.

Custom pre-commit hooks for preCICE are included in the repository precice/precice-pre-commit-hooks. This currently provides a stand-alone hook for the precice config formatter. The repository provides tags in the form X.Y where X is the major preCICE version and Y is the version of the hook repo.

Tools for preCICE

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Creating your own simulation or doing a rigorous performance study of a method? There are probably a few common tasks that could use some automation for.

Here you will find a few tools to:

Install and use preCICE tools as a single integrated preCICE CLI.
Simulate and replay coupled simulations in an artificial environment without actual solvers and adapters.
Check your configuration file without starting a whole simulation.
Visualize the preCICE configuration file to understand if you are really asking preCICE to do what you meant to.
Couple your simulation to FMU models following the FMI standard.
Set up a coupling between solvers at different scales to resolve two-scale coupled scenarios using preCICE.
Analyze the performance of the coupled simulation to understand where the runtime comes from.
Compute parameters for the RBF mapping configuration to optimize the accuracy and performance of your RBF mapping.

Further tools

These tools are also available but they currently don’t have a separate documentation page on this website:

Towards Multi-Phase Flow Simulations in the PDE Framework Peano

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In Computational Mechanics, Volume 48(3), p. 365–376. Springer, 2011

Towards Partitioned Fluid-Structure Interaction on Massively Parallel Systems

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In Proceedings of WCCM XI / ECCM V / ECFD VI, July 2014

Troubleshooting and common issues

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Solutions for common local Hugo and module build problems.

Troubleshooting the CalculiX adapter

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While working with the CalculiX adapter, you may run onto common issues. This is a collection of what we know could go wrong.

Turbulent flow coupling for flow-induced vibrations

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The GO-VIKING European project was created to study flow-induced vibrations inside nuclear power plants more effectively. The Von Karman Institute hosts a facility called GOKSTAD, where measurements are taken to compare with numerical results. The numerical results were obtained using LES simulations, with the aim of getting as close as possible to the experimental data and identifying correlations between the two.

In the experimental facility, a fully turbulent developed flow is generated before the inlet of the test section. To reproduce the same conditions in the numerical simulations, preCICE was used to couple a simple channel (providing the fully developed flow) to the inlet of the test section. Learn more

Update the search index

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Build, validate, and publish the Hugo-generated Algolia search index.

Use the adapter for your own project

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This section will help you couple your own deal.II-code based on the provided deal.II solid codes.

Use the DuMuX adapter

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How to use the DuMuX adapter for building your own coupled solver.

Using Spack

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Get and use Spack to easily build preCICE and all its dependencies from source on your Linux/macOS laptop or local supercomputer, without any root access.

Visualization hints for partitioned simulations

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

A few hints on how to visualize result files generated by various solvers used in the preCICE tutorials.

Watch integral configuration

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

With a watch integral, you can track the transient change of integral values of coupling data over complete coupling meshes. This is especially useful when you want to track conserved quantities of your simulation, such as flow rate or the overall force acting on a geometry.

Watchpoint configuration

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

With a watch point, you can track the coupling data values at a certain position over time. This is very handy for applications such as the Turek and Hron FSI3 benchmark where you want to analyze the movement of the tip of a flexible plate.

Waveform iteration for time interpolation of coupling data

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

With waveform iteration, you can interpolate coupling data in time for higher-order time stepping and more stable subcycling.

XML reference

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

This page contains the full reference of the XML configuration of the preCICE library, containing the tag structure as well as attributes and their types and values.

You support preCICE – preCICE supports you

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Support preCICE to help the software remain and grow. In return, the preCICE team supports your work. There are three different variants for such a collaboration.