The Free Finite Element Package is a modular designed collection of GNU Octave / MATLAB functions in a library. This library contain numerical methods required when working with linear Finite Elements in two dimensions. FFEP is tested using GNU Octave (primarily) and MATLAB (second-tier).

With the Finite Element Method (FEM) (Wikipedia Article) it is possible to solve partial differential equations (PDE) (Wikipedia Article). See under the section About for further details.

Right now version 1.0 is available. The software was mainly designed for teaching purpose. You should consider this before using FFEP! To contact the developer write a mail to joerg @ frochte . de or joerg . frochte @ hs - bochum . de.

Until 2016 FFEP was developed using C. Science 2016 the language was switched to GNU Octave with some C Mex-Functions. Mesh generation or import is not part of FFEP. We recommend the use of Gmsh.

FFEP should meet the following requirements:
The Package should be easy to be used, well documented, stable, fast, portable and last but not least Open Source Software.

License

To fulfil the last condition the

Free Finite Element Package is released under a BSD-style License

which is shown below. This license can be summed up like that:

Do what you want with this code, but don't pretend that you wrote it.
Do not sue us if it breaks.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

About

The goal of FFEP is to provide basic functions for approximating the solution of following differential equations in two dimensions with Dirichlet, Neumann and Robin boundary conditions.

With this base problems it is possible to simulate heat conductance or model problems from magnet- and electrostatics. Beyond this it is the intention of FFEP to build a free toolbox for numerical programming of finite elements, so that someone, who for example wants to program a preconditioner for a linear system of equations resulting of a finite element discretization, will find a programming environment that provides basic functions of finite element programming, so that he or she can focus on his topical interest.

Another very important point is, that this toolbox is Open Source Software, that means:

you have the source code, so you know - if you want to - what's behind the blind
you can change the tools, depending on your needs
everyone can reproduce your results, if you give him your code, because he can get the library free of charge
you can work wherever you want (no License that binds you to one server)
you can fix and find bugs on your own

Documentation

The documentation in English is still lacking- In German all functions and there implementation are well documented and discusses in the book Finite-Elemente-Methode -- Eine praxisbezogene Einführung mit GNU Octave/MATLAB published by the Hanser Verlag which is a German publishing house.

The download package includes some examples. Some of them will be discussed in English here quite soon.

Download

current version of FFEP from the projects SourceForge website.