Table of Contents

PyLith Development Plans, Nov 2016

Priorities for PyLith software development, such as new features and enhancements. This a draft for community comment (Nov 7, 2016).

This plan attempts to balance meeting short-term objectives of delivering high priority, new features and meeting long-term objectives of extending the code to solve a broader range of scientific problems.

Version 3.0 (Spring 2017)

  1. Multiphysics [30%]
    • Implement modular approach for specifying governing equations and computing residuals and Jacobians.
    • Incompressible elasticity via a pressure field [20%]
    • Poroelasticity [5%]
  2. Higher order basis functions [25%]
    • Allow user to select order of basis functions independent of the mesh (which defines the geometry). This permits higher resolution for a given mesh.
  3. Switch to using PETSc time-stepping (TS) algorithms. [25%]
    • Replace simple Python-based time-stepping implementations with PETSc time-stepping algorithms that provide support for higher order discretization in time and real adaptive time stepping.
  4. Improve fault formulation for spontaneous rupture [10%]
    • Removes inner solve associated with updating Lagrange multipliers. This will significantly accelerate the nonlinear solve.
  5. Allow full specification of the initial conditions (solution and state variables) [0%]
  6. Update user manual
    • Convert from LyX to LaTeX for ease of maintenance and editing. [0%]
    • Reorganize for multiphysics implementation. [5%]
    • Reorganize examples. [0%]
      • Focus on demonstrating the range of physics and features beginning with simple cases and building towards more complex cases.
      • Include ParaView Python scripts for plotting results.
      • Consider moving examples to Jupyter notebooks; export to PDF files for “print” documentation.

Version 3.1 (late 2017)

  1. GUI interface for specifying simulation parameters
  2. Add additional multiphysics implementations and rheologies
    • Drucker-Prager bulk rheology with relaxation to yield surface
    • Elasticity + heat flow
  3. Reorganize output for time-dependent Green's functions and adjoints
  4. Multilevel nonlinear solve
  5. Radial basis functions for spatial databases
  6. Convert to Python 3 and Pyre 1.0.

Version 4.0 (TBD)

  1. Earthquake cycle modeling
    • Same mesh for dynamic and quasi-static parts (dynamic → quasi-static, quasi-static → dynamic, complete cycle)
  2. Create strain hardening/softening 2-D and 3-D Drucker-Prager elastoplastic models.
  3. Moment tensor point sources via equivalent body forces [5%]
    • Moment tensor point sources provide a mesh independent deformation source that is better suited for Green's function calculations than slip on a fault surface via cohesive cells.

Features for Future Releases