Thank you, that was very helpful. Considering that I'm new to FE, and it feels like I already can almost do what I want, really speaks in favor of SfePy.

 

Well, it's not originally my idea, so I'm not sure where it might lead to.
As a starting point, I try to reproduce [1] any may explore [2].

I basically want to update the material properties (basically elastic modulus) of a node dependent on the stress of the surrounding nodes, according to cellular automata like rules.

I think I found in the examples how to do the first approach ("project the parameters given as the function into the FE space"), and I guess this should work somehow.
But better suited seems the second approach ("an auxiliary FE field defining the parameters and use it to evaluate the parameters in the quadrature points"), which probably allows to stick closer to the SfePy framework.
I try to figure out how that works, but I'd also be grateful for any hint.

I guess it's not uncommon to use SfePy for iterative processes? Maybe it has even been used for some kind of topology optimisation?


If there's any interest, I'd be happy to keep you updated on this!
Best regards



[1] Structural design using cellular automata, 2000, E. Kita and T. Toyoda
[2] Hybrid Cellular Automata: a biologically-inspired structural optimization technique, 2004, A. Tovar et al.