• RSS feed for comments on this page: http://imechanica.org/crss/node/1394
• This page was started following discussions initiated by Mogadalai Gururajan.

     Here are some links to open source codes/software available on the net; all this information is collected from different posts at iMechanica. It is quite possible that we missed some, and some that are listed are not open source. If so, please feel free to edit the post or leave a comment with relevant links so that we can edit the post.
     If you write a post or comment about some codes/software or if you notice one while you are reading the posts at iMechanica, please leave a note in the comments or include the information in the listing below.
     If you have some code you would like to share with mechanicians, write a post in your blog and leave a comment here, so that we can update the repository database.
     We believe, over a period, we might be able to build a very authorotative and useful repository of codes here, so that this post becomes a one-stop shop for any of your code needs.

Finite Elements

• Some pointers to open source FEM codes
   
• Pre- and Post-Processors
• Gmsh
  A three-dimensional mesh generator with some CAD and postprocessing features. Free.
  Comments: See comment here.
  Expert opinion: not available
  Rating:
• Triangle
  A two-dimensional triangular element mesh generator. Free.
  Comments: See comment here.
  Expert opinion: not available
  Rating:
   
• Nonlinear Finite Elements
• CalculiX
  Finite element solver for linear/nonlinear field problems. Free. 
  Comments: See comment here.
  Expert opinion: See comments here
  nd here
  Rating:
• Code_Aster
  
  Explicit/implicit linear/nonlinear finite elements for thermomechanical problems.  Site is in French.  An English blurb can be found here.  Free.
  Comments: See comment here. 
  Expert opinion: See comment here
  Rating:
• Impact
  
  Explicit nonlinear finite element code.  Has a simple preprocessor.  Free.
  Comments: See comment here. 
  Expert opinion: not available.
  Rating: not rated.
• OOFEM
  
  Linear/Nonlinear finite elements for solids and some fluid and transport problems.  Developed at the Czech Technical University at Prague. Good documentation.  Free.
  Comments: See comments here . 
  Expert Opinion: not available. 
  Rating:
  
• Tahoe
  
  Nonlinear Finite Element and Mesh Free software from Sandia.  Free.
  Comments: See comments here and here. 
  Expert opinion: not available. 
  Rating:
  
• Warp3D
  
  Nonlinear finite elements for solid mechanics from the Univerty of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne.  Free. 
  Comments: See comment . 
  Expert opinion: not available. 
  Rating: not rated.
  
   
• Linear Finite Elements
• Elmer
  A multiphysics finite element software developed in Finland.  Free.
  Comments: See comment here.
  Expert opinion: not available. 
  Rating: not rated.
• FEMPACK finite element routines
  
  Suite of Matlab routines for PDEs; via.
  Comments: not available.
  Expert opinion: not available. 
  Rating: not rated.
• FETK
  Comments: not available.
  Expert opinion: not available. 
  Rating: not rated.
• OpenFEM
  Comments: not available.
  Expert opinion: not available. 
  Rating: not rated.
• OOF
  Tool for the linear finite element analysis of complex scanned microstructures.
  Comments: See comment here.
  Expert opinion: not available. 
  Rating: not rated.
• Extended finite element method codes ; via.
  Comments: not available.
  Expert opinion: not available. 
  Rating: not rated.
   
• General Computational Mathematical Modeling
• FEniCS
  A joint project between universities, national labs, and industry to create a next generation computational framework.   Includes solver modules (DOLFIN ), compilers and optimizers for variational forms (FFC , FErari), a symbolic finite element engine (SyFi) among other things.  Free. 
  Comments: See comment here.
  Expert opinion: not available.
  Rating: not rated.
• GetFEM++
  A C++/Matlab library that provides a variety of finite elements. GNU Public Licence. Free.
  Comments: See comment here.
  Expert opinion: not available.
  Rating: not rated.
• FeaTure
  A C++ library that provides base classes for a variety of finite elements. Free.
  Comments: See comment here.
  Expert opinion: not available.
  Rating: not rated.
   
• Adaptive Mesh Refinement and Error Estimation
• deal.II
  A C++ library for adaptive finite element analysis and error estimation.   Free.
  Comments: See comment here.
  Expert opinion: not available.
  Rating: not rated.
   

Ordinary Differential Equation Solvers 

• PSIDE
  Framework for solving systems of linear ODEs. Allows for parallel solution.
  Comments: not available. 
  Expert opinion: not available. 
  Rating:  not rated.

Partial Differential Equation Solvers 

• ELLPACK
  Framework for solving elliptic PDEs.  Not really open source and requires a site license of
  $250/year. 
  Comments: See comment here.
  Expert opinion: not available. 
  Rating:  not rated.
• FIPY
  PDE solution framework from NIST.
  Comments: not available. 
  Expert opinion: not available. 
  Rating:  not rated.
• JSIM
  Simulation framework for solving PDEs from Physiome.
  Comments: not available. 
  Expert opinion: not available. 
  Rating:  not rated.
• PDE2D
  Two-dimensional PDE solving framework.
  Comments: not available. 
  Expert opinion: not available. 
  Rating:  not rated.

Meshfree Methods

• Element-free Galerkin Matlab routines
  Matlab routines for 1D and 2D Element-free Galerkin (EFG) simulations from John Dolbow.
  Comments: See comment here.
  Expert opinion: not available. 
  Rating:  not rated.
• Uintah
  Parallel C++ code for Material Point Method calculations from University of Utah.  MIT License.  Available for free upon request. Limited user documentation.
  Comments: See comments here, here, and here.
  Expert opinion: See comment here. 
  Rating:  not rated.

Open Source CFD and Coupled Codes

• CoolFluid
  CFD code. Free. 
  Comments: not available. 
  Expert opinion: not available. 
  Rating: not rated.
• FeatFlow
  Solver library and user interface for incompressible Navier-Stokes in 2D and 3D from the University of Dortmund.  Free. 
  Comments: See comment here. 
  Expert opinion: not available. 
  Rating: not rated.
• GETDP
  CFD code. Free. 
  Comments: not available. 
  Expert opinion: not available. 
  Rating: not rated.
• HEDRA
  CFD code. Free. 
  Comments: not available. 
  Expert opinion: not available. 
  Rating: not rated.
• LibMesh
  Finite element library that's primarily been used for CFD applications. Free. 
  Comments: See comment here. 
  Expert opinion: not available. 
  Rating: not rated.
• Uintah
  Parallel C++ code for couple fluid-structure interaction simulations. Uses an Implicit Compressible Eulerian (ICE) CFD code for the fluid and the Material Point Method for the solid. From University of Utah.  MIT License.  Available for free upon request. Limited user documentation.
  Comments: See comments here, here, and here.
  Expert opinion: See comment here. 
  Rating:  not rated.

Microstructural evolution

• Some pointers to open source codes for microstructural evolution
• Codes for simulations of dislocations
  Dislocation dynamics code. Free. 
  Comments: See comment here. 
  Expert opinion: not available. 
  Rating: not rated.

Molecular Dynamics/Statics and Quantum Chemistry

• Biomolecules
  • AMBER
    Molecular dynamics code from Scripps. Free. 
    Comments: not available. 
    Expert opinion: not available. 
    Rating: not rated.
  • CHARMM ; 
    Molecular dynamics code. Free. 
    Comments: not available. 
    Expert opinion: not available. 
    Rating: not rated.
  • GROMACS, 
    Molecular dynamics code. Free. 
    Comments: not available. 
    Expert opinion: not available. 
    Rating: not rated.
  • NAMD
    Molecular dynamics code from UIUC. Free. 
    Comments: not available. 
    Expert opinion: not available. 
    Rating: not rated.
  • NWChem
    Molecular dynamics code from PNL. Free. 
    Comments: not available. 
    Expert opinion: not available. 
    Rating: not rated.
  • ORAC
    Program for running classical simulations of biomolecules. Simulations can be carried out in the NVE, NPT, NHP, and NVT thermodynamic ensembles. GPL Free. 
    Comments: not available. 
    Expert opinion: not available. 
    Rating: not rated.
  • TINKER
    Molecular dynamics code from WUSTL. Free. 
    Comments: See comment here. 
    Expert opinion: not available. 
    Rating: not rated.
     
• Polymers, Metals, Gases
  
  • AMBER
    Molecular dynamics code from Scripps. Free. 
    Comments: not available. 
    Expert opinion: not available. 
    Rating: not rated.
  • CAMP Open Software project (CAMPOS)
    Molecular dynamics and atomistic simulation codes from Denmark written in Python. GPL License (Free). The atomistic simulation tools include:
    • Density functional code - dacapo
    • Classical MD and quasticontinuum code - Asap
    • Linear muffin-tin orbital code - LMTO

    Comments: See comment here
    Expert opinion: not available. 
    Rating: not rated.

  • CHARMM
    Molecular dynamics code. Free. 
    Comments: not available. 
    Expert opinion: not available. 
    Rating: not rated.
  • CP2K
    Molecular dynamics code to do atomistic and molecular simulations of solid state, liquid, molecular and biological systems. The methods included range from first principles ab initio density functional methods to parametrised, classical pair- and many-body potentials. Freeware. 
    Comments: not available. 
    Expert opinion: not available. 
    Rating: not rated.
  • DL_POLY
    Molecular dynamics code from UK. Free. 
    Comments: not available. 
    Expert opinion: not available. 
    Rating: not rated.
  • GROMACS
    Molecular dynamics code primarily designed for biochemical molecules like proteins and lipids that have a lot of complicated bonded interactions. Also fast at calculating the nonbonded interactions (that usually dominate simulations) and may be used for research on non-biological systems, e.g. polymers.
    Comments: not available. 
    Expert opinion: not available. 
    Rating: not rated.
  • LAMMPS, 
    Molecular dynamics code from Sandia. Free .
    Comments: not available. 
    Expert opinion: not available. 
    Rating:
  • Lennard
    Noble gas simulator. GPL Free.
    Comments: not available. 
    Expert opinion: not available. 
    Rating: not rated.
  • Molecular Modelling ToolKit
    Library for molecular simulation applications. In addition to providing ready-to-use implementations of standard algorithms, MMTK serves as a code basis that can be easily extended and modified to deal with standard and non-standard problems in molecular simulations.GPL Free.
    Comments: not available. 
    Expert opinion: not available. 
    Rating: not rated.
  • MOSCITO
    Molecular dynamics simulations of condensed phase systems defined by classical molecular mechanics force-fields such as AMBER, OPLS, CHARMM and GROMOS. GPL Free.
    Comments: not available. 
    Expert opinion: not available. 
    Rating: not rated.
  • NAMD
    Molecular dynamics code from UIUC. Free. 
    Comments: not available. 
    Expert opinion: not available. 
    Rating: not rated.
  • NWChem
    Molecular dynamics code from PNL. Free. 
    Comments: not available. 
    Expert opinion: not available. 
    Rating: not rated.
  • ParaDyn
    Molecular dynamics code from Sandia. Free. 
    Comments: not available. 
    Expert opinion: not available. 
    Rating:  
  • TINKER
    Serial molecular dynamics code. Free. 
    Comments: not available. 
    Expert opinion: not available. 
    Rating: not rated.

Visualization

• SCIRun
  Scientific Visualization software toolkit from University of Utah. State of the art algorithms for volume rendering and ray tracing. Includes a number of extremely efficient tools. MIT License.
  Comments: See comment here.
  Expert opinion: not available. 
  Rating:  
• AtomEye,  
  Comments: not available.
  Expert opinion: not available. 
  Rating:  
• VMD, 
  VMD software ?
  Comments: not available.
  Expert opinion: not available. 
  Rating: not rated.
• RasMol, 
  Rasterizing software ?
  Comments: not available.
  Expert opinion: not available. 
  Rating: not rated.
• Raster3d 
  Rasterizing software?
  Comments: not available.
  Expert opinion: not available. 
  Rating: not rated.
• MayaVi
  
  A scientific data visualization tool kit written in Python.
  Comments: not available.
  Expert opinion: not available. 
  Rating: not rated.
• Gnuplot
  
  A copyrighted, but freely distributed plotting software.
  Comments: not available.
  Expert opinion: not available. 
  Rating: not rated.

Linear/Nonlinear Algebraic Solvers 

• PETSC
  Parallel solvers for linear systems of algebraic equations. Free
  Comments: not available.
  Expert opinion: not available. 
  Rating: not rated.
• Amigos
  Parallel solvers for linear systems of algebraic equations. Free
  Comments: not available.
  Expert opinion: not available. 
  Rating: not rated.
• MANPACK
  Parallel solvers for linear systems of algebraic equations. Free
  Comments: not available.
  Expert opinion: not available. 
  Rating: not rated.

Others

• Codes for miscellaneous applications
  
  For rotations, Mohr's circles, visualization, elastic constants calculation etc; via .
• Some pointers to fast solvers
• GNU Scientific library
  
  A collection of C/C++ library for a range of numerical tasks, and is a must-visit site for anybody who is even remotely interested in using computers for scientific calculations. The GSL homepage also lists related packages, extensions/applications and wrappers for other languages.
• UbuntuScience
  
  A comprehensive collection of software that can be run on Linux
• NIST software page
  
  Among other things, the software listed include those for the study of multizone airflow, structure and properties of cement based materials, scientific visualization, statistical analysis, non-linear modelling, a guide to the available mathematical software (cross-indexed),  and smoke plume modelling.
• FFTW  
  
  A C subroutine library for  discrete Fast Fourier Transforms (FFT); benchmarked and portable, a choice program for FFTs
• Maxima
  
  A GPL computer algebra system implemented in LISP that can do symbolic, and numeric computations (and, plotting too). Among other things, the code can do symbolic manipulations on tensors.

Ranked Lists of Free/Commerical Software

• Structural Engineering Software Database from BridgeArt.net. 
  
  Lists software by name, category.  Searchable list.  Provides rankings too. 
  Comments: See comment here.