SI2-SSE: Collaborative Research: Extending the Practicality and Scalability of LibMesh-Based Unstructured, Adaptive Finite Element Computations

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The development and deployment of cyberinfrastructure focused on scientific and engineering simulation has been, and continues to be, essential to the progress of science and engineering in the U.S. This is particularly true for software used in large scale supercomputing environments. Thus, for the U.S. to continue leadership and advancement in scientific computing, it is crucial that software infrastructure advance to enable modern computational and software engineering strategies for simulating complex scientific and engineering systems. Once such piece of software is the libMesh finite element library. libMesh is used by hundreds of research groups in the U.S. and around the world. Critically, libMesh can utilize large scale supercomputing infrastructure for simulating scientific and engineering systems. This work will update the libMesh software library to use state-of-the-art algorithms that will enable robust simulations on the largest supercomputers in the world and further advance the complexity of systems that can be successfully modeled using libMesh. Furthermore, the library will be enhanced to support user applications to leverage modern computer architectures, including emerging many-core architectures. This will enable the continued use of libMesh as both a fundamental tool of scientific and engineering simulation and as an educational tool for computational algorithms.The libMesh finite element library is a prominent example of an open-source tool supporting adaptive mesh refinement, interfaces to preeminent solver packages, and solutions on large parallel supercomputers of complex finite element models. libMesh supports hundreds of users and many applications in solving partial differential equations across a variety of disciplines including solid mechanics, fluids mechanics, magnetohydrodynamics, hypersonics, nuclear engineering, combustion, and acoustics, to name a few examples. Following over a decade of successful collaborative open-source development, the library is poised to maintain its place as a prominent open-source finite element package. To do so, libMesh must be made to support emerging many core architectures, leverage the most advanced scalable algorithms, and interface with geometry underlying the complex meshes used in engineering analysis. The work addresses these issues directly by extending and enhancing the libMesh finite element library. The extensions will seamlessly make available modern solution algorithms through interfaces to world class solver libraries, facilitate the interaction with underlying geometric representations using openly available software libraries, and efficiently utilize modern computing hardware through cutting-edge software engineering principles and designs. Simultaneously, the developed interfaces will allow for flexibility of development of modeling kernels and maintain the low the barrier of entry that libMesh has always had for both the libMesh community as well as the scientific community in general. Such lofty goals will be attained by designing usable interfaces that hide the complexity of the underlying algorithms and extensive testing on modern computing architectures to ensure performance and scalability is delivered to the libMesh community.