|
------snip------
I have OPERA 3D and have used OPERA 2D. Personaly I
find it very clumsy to use, it uses a custum GUI that is not very stable and
crashes often in the middle of models. The mesher also can fall over or lock up.
The solvers seem quite robust and appear to work reasonably well. I have also
used Maget 6 and Cedrats flux 3D/2D which both were very good.
As a first stab to a problem I will alwaystry a 2D
approximation in Femm first and quite often go no further because the results
are good enough !. Because it (Femm) is easy to use and quick, only when 3d
is definetly requied do I switch to the commercial package.
I must also recomend one other free package and
that is GetDP, it is an effort by the Department of Electrial Engineering,
University of Liege. it is more of a programming language for Finite element
analysis. Last known address www.montefiore.ulg.ac.be/~geuzaine/getdp.html.
At present the pre-processor/mesher/post processor dosn't run under windowsso
you need a unix or clone system (eg Linux).I have run it under linux it it
seems quite good. Is anybody intrested in say starting an e group on GetDP,i am
currently (through my department at uni) starting colaborations with them.(I
hope nobody takes offence at this in the Femm group). The e group's seem towork
very well for Femm
Cheers,
Robin Cornelius.
|