FEM Preferences

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The preferences screen of the FEM Workbench are found in the Preferences Editor, Edit → Preferences → FEM.

There are several tabs in the FEM workbench preferences, starting with the General configuration of the workbench. The rest of the tabs control how FEM interacts with supported external solvers.

The current supported external solvers are:

General

On the General tab you can specify the following:

Gmsh

On the Gmsh tab you can specify the following:

Name Description
Search in known binary directories If checked, FreeCAD will look for the binary of Gmsh in known (usual) directories
Gmsh binary path The path to the the binary of Gmsh

CalculiX

On the CalculiX tab you can specify the following:

Elmer

On the Elmer tab you can specify the following:

Name Description
ElmerGrid: Search in known binary directories If checked, FreeCAD will look for the binary of the grid writer utility of the Elmer in known (usual) directories
ElmerGrid binary path The path to the the binary of the grid writer utility of the Elmer
ElmerSolver: Search in known binary directories If checked, FreeCAD will look for the solver binary of Elmer in known (usual) directories
ElmerSolver binary path The path to the the solver binary of Elmer

Mystran

On the Mystran tab you can specify the following:

Name Description
Search in known binary directories If checked, FreeCAD will look for the binary of the Mystran in known (usual) directories
Mystran binary path The path to the the binary of the Mystran

Z88

On the Z88 tab you can specify the following:

Name Description
Search in known binary directories If checked, FreeCAD will look for the binary named z88r of the Z88 solver in known (usual) directories
z88r binary path The path to the the binary named z88r of the Z88 solver
Solver method The solver method used by the Z88 solver for new simulations.
Max places in stiffness matrix This is relevant when the solver method Simple Cholesky is used. After starting the solver, it might tell you that you need to increase the MAXGS value. In this case increase the max places and re-run the solver.
Max places in coincidence vector This is relevant when one of the iterative solver methods is used. After starting the solver, it might tell you that you need to increase the MAXKOI value. In this case increase the max places and re-run the solver.

Material

On the Material tab you can specify the following:

Name Description
Use built-in materials The cards built-in to FreeCAD will be listed as available.
Use materials from Materials directory in user's FreeCAD preference directory The cards from FreeCAD's preferences directory will be listed as available. On Windows, that would for example be this folder:

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\FreeCAD\Material

Use materials from user defined directory Also material cards also from the specified directory will be listed as available.
Delete card duplicates Duplicate cards will be deleted from the displayed material card list.
Sort by resources Material cards will appear sorted by their resources (locations). If unchecked, they will be sorted by their name.