Installation of useful simulation tools

FreeCAD

FreeCAD is a useful tool to make a 3D design. It is usually available directly from the Debian (I used Xubuntu 20.04) software repositories and can by installed by:

sudo apt-get install freecad

SALOME

I use SALOME to form mesh from the 3D design for simulations. The installation can be performed by downloading suitable installer from their official homepage. For instance, I used the Universal Linux Binary (SALOME 9.7.0) installer for my Xubuntu 20.04 environment. Installation was performed by extracting the downloaded package and the program can be run as follows:

tar xfz SALOME-9.7.0-MPI.tar.gz
cd SALOME-9.7.0-MPI
./salome

Elmer

Elmer is a quite powerful multipurpose simulation tool for solids. The installation can be performed by adding its repository as follows:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:elmer-csc-ubuntu/elmer-csc-ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install elmerfem-csc

If you need a graphical user interface, it can be installed through the following command similarly, having the repository added:

sudo apt-get install elmerfem-csc-eg

OpenFOAM

For fluids, OpenFOAM can be used instead. The installation process can be performed by adding its repository as follows:

sudo sh -c "wget -O - https://dl.openfoam.org/gpg.key | apt-key add -"
sudo add-apt-repository http://dl.openfoam.org/ubuntu
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install openfoam8

ParaView

ParaView is a useful tool to visualize and interpret your simulation results. It is usually available directly from the Debian (I used Xubuntu 20.04) software repositories and can by installed by:

sudo apt-get install paraview