Automated generation and symbolic manipulation of tensor product finite elements

Andrew T T McRae, Gheorghe-Teodor Bercea, Lawrence Mitchell, David A Ham, Colin J Cotter

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

48 Citations (SciVal)
194 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

We describe and implement a symbolic algebra for scalar and vector-valued finite elements, enabling the computer generation of elements with tensor product structure on quadrilateral, hexahedral and triangular prismatic cells. The algebra is implemented as an extension to the domain-specific language UFL, the Unified Form Language. This allows users to construct many finite element spaces beyond those supported by existing software packages. We have made corresponding extensions to FIAT, the FInite element Automatic Tabulator, to enable numerical tabulation of such spaces. This tabulation is consequently used during the automatic generation of low-level code that carries out local assembly operations, within the wider context of solving finite element problems posed over such function spaces. We have done this work within the code-generation pipeline of the software package Firedrake; we make use of the full Firedrake package to present numerical examples.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)S25-S47
JournalSIAM Journal on Scientific Computing
Volume38
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 27 Oct 2016

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Automated generation and symbolic manipulation of tensor product finite elements'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this