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AceFEM has two components. The main part of the package handles procedures that are not numerically intensive, such as processing of user-input data, mesh generation, control of the solution procedures, and graphic post-processing of results. The numerical module handles numerically intensive operations such as evaluating and assembling finite element (FE) quantities (including tangent matrix, residual, sensitivity vectors, etc.), solving linear systems of equations, and performing contact search procedures.
The numerical module exists both as a Mathematica package and as an external program written in C and connected with Mathematica via MathLink. This unique configuration lets you solve large-scale industrial problems with several hundred thousand unknowns and use advanced Mathematica capabilities such as high-precision arithmetic, interval arithmetic, or even symbolic evaluation of FE quantities to analyze various properties of numerical procedures on relatively small examples. The AceFEM package comes with a large library of finite elements (solid, thermal, contact, 2D, 3D, etc.), including full symbolic input for all elements.
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