[petsc-users] Modeling a Network with DMPlex?

[Abhyankar, Shrirang G.]

Hi Florian,
 You can use DMPlex directly as Jed suggests or you can use a new DM that
has been
added recently to PETSc specifically for circuit/network/graph
applications. This DM, named DMCircuit, is built on top of
DMPlex. It is currently in the next branch of PETSc and there is an
example from a power grid
application in src/snes/examples/tutorials/pflow.

Take a look at DMCircuit and let us know if you want to use it. I'll give
you more information on its usage if you are
interested.

Shri

On 2/10/14 12:35 AM, "Jed Brown" <jed at jedbrown.org> wrote:

>Florian Meier <florian.meier at koalo.de> writes:
>
>> Hi,
>> I would like to solve a non-linear equation system over a computer
>> network. This is somewhat similar to FEM. There is a bunch of
>> equations for each link that includes variables of adjacent links. I
>> assume there is some support in PETSc for mapping the network to
>> memory, distribute it and iterate over the adjacent links, but all
>> examples I could found for DMPlex are so tightly coupled to FEM that I
>> am not able to separate the relevant parts from the parts that are
>> only needed for FEM (e.g. continuous elements, discretization).
>>
>> Is DMPlex actually the right place to look?
>
>You can describe a network having only edges and vertices.  This sounds
>similar to what Shri does for power networks.  You wouldn't use the FEM
>interfaces, but the DMPlex primitives still apply.

You can We've recently added a DM for problems arising from circuit
applications that may be
of use to you. The interface is called DMCircuit and is currently in the
next branch of PETSc.
There is currently one DMCircuit example coming from a power grid
application 
in src/snes/examples/tutorials/circuit/pflow.


>