Overview
Coreform Flex is the preprocessor for Coreform IGA, the world’s first fully spline based commercial simulation software that implements the Flex Representation Method. The Flex Representation Method (FRM) is an isogeometric analysis (IGA) solver technology that allows users to setup and solve complex problems in science and engineering with less effort than traditional finite element analyses. Coreform Flex, then, is the interface that allows users to setup models that can then be solved with Coreform IGA.
Users’ primary interactions with Coreform IGA, which is simply a command-line executable (e.g., coreform_iga.exe), will be through Coreform Flex - which also supports submitting Coreform IGA jobs for execution. Therefore we will often refer to the overall capability provided to users as “Coreform Flex”, even though the simulation capabilities are actually provided by Coreform IGA.
Whereas many solvers may sacrifice accuracy or capabilities for the sake of model preparation simplicity, or may require intensive model preparation in order to solve challenging problems, Coreform Flex aims to provide world-class simulation capabilities coupled with simple model setup.
Coreform Flex is actively advancing the state of spline based simulation technology. New features and capabilities are continually being added as they are developed. These new features may not be fully production ready, but they may be of interest to many of our users. Because of this, new features are exposed to users early in the development process but will be marked as (alpha) in the Coreform IGA Reference Manual until they have been fully tested and verified. The input and behavior of experimental features may change during development and support will be limited.