Options

The Itasca Viewer (Iv) is an alternative viewport to PFC3D that uses OpenGL to dramatically increase plot rendering speed. Iv offers display options not available in the main PFC3D interface, including transparency and source-oriented shading.

Thermal logic in PFC3D simulates the transient flux of heat in materials and the subsequent development of thermally induced displacements and forces. The thermal model may be run independently or coupled to the mechanical model. Thermal strains are produced to account for heating of both particles and bonding material. Also, walls may be assigned a temperature to set a thermal boundary condition.

Fluid logic enables users to simulate fluid coupling problems as a two-way interaction between particles and fluid in fully saturated, fixed, fluid domains. The scheme can be applied to a variety of engineering problems, including sand sedimentation, sand transport (slurry flow), fluidized beds and pneumatic conveying.

Another fluid analysis capability is also available, via the Coupled Computational Fluid Dynamics (CCFD) add-on. More information, including a comparison of these two methods, can be found on the CCFD page.

This option enables a user to partition a PFC3D model into distinct physical regions and assign these regions to separate processors that are connected by a network. Particles can migrate across partitions and will be automatically mapped into the corresponding processor as they do so. This capability can provide a substantial increase in memory capacity and calculation speed for very large models.

MPI (Message Passing Interface) enables separate instances of PFC3D, which may be running on different machines connected by a network, to communicate with one another. The MPI capability provides parallel-processing support for the AC/DC (Adaptive Continuum/Discontinuum) logic. It can also provide a communications protocol for user-written parallel-processing logic implemented with the C++ option. The MPI capability is distinct from the parallel-processing scheme described above - the two forms may not be used together.

The C++ option enables users to link their own C++ code into the PFC3D executable. This option can be used instead of FISH functions to speed up execution considerably; a special advantage is the reduction of computation time when accessing large numbers of balls or contacts by linked lists. This option enables users to perform efficient simulations, such as coupled analysis, in which many PFC variables must be manipulated and fed back to PFC3D during cycling.

The UDM option enables users to write their own contact constitutive models in C++ and create DLL (dynamic link library) files that can be loaded during execution of the PFC3D code. This provides the flexibility to incorporate the physics relevant to particular problems into the distinct element framework. It also permits exchange of contact models among PFC3D users. New DLL models can be obtained from the Itasca web site devoted specifically to model development and exchange: www.itasca-udm.com.

These options are sold as a single package, and both require the use of a Visual C++ 2005 compiler.