FEAP for windows with cygwin

José M.ª Goicolea, 15 oct 2013

FEAP has been developed by Prof. R.L. Taylor from the University of California at Berkeley, and it contains work from a number of renowned experts and researchers in finite elements. It is an advanced program for linear and nonlinear models, under static or dynamic analysis. FEAP is employed frequently as a base for research work in academic groups.

The binary versions of FEAP which may be downloaded here incorporate a number of additions, bug corrections, extensions and new elements and materials. These have been programmed by researchers in the computational mechanics group (Felipe Gabaldón, José M.ª Goicolea, Javier Rodríguez Soler, Sergio Blanco). The binaries have been obtained with the GNU gfortran (gcc) compiler as well as the Intel fortran compiler, for Linux, Mac OS X or Windows (cygwin environment). The program FEAP as such consists of only one binary file.

FEAP is executed from the shell command terminal and uses an X11 graphics server (available under Linux/Unix, Mac OS X and Windows+Cygwin).

Detailed instructions to install Cygwin

For Windows it is required to install first the system cygwin which provides a shell command terminal and the graphics server X11 used by FEAP. Additionally cygwin provides several utilities for editing FEAP model and results files. All these programs are free software under GNU license. The recommended Cygwin environment needs some 300MB of disk space.

1. Enter the site http://www.cygwin.com and download Cygwin installation program "setup-x86.exe". (Install the 32-bit version as which will work both on 32-bit and 64-bit windows installations, do not install the 64-bit cygwin from "setup-x86_64.exe".) Execute this program and follow the instructons (see screenshots below with details).
2. When installing, besides the basic packages installed by default, select for installation the following additional packages:
   
   • from group editors -> vim, joe
   • from group graphics -> gnuplot, gv, ImageMagick
   • from group X11 -> font-adobe-dpi75, xclock, xinit
   Due to dependencies other associated packages will also be marked for installation.
   
3. Once finished the installation, execute cygwin clicking on the icon created in the desktop or in windows program menu. It will open a command terminal running the bash command language, situated in our home folder, with the same name as the windows user name. Assuming this name is "pepe", the home folder will be "/home/pepe". A symbol such as "$" must appear, this is the "prompt" indicating it is ready to accept "shell" commands (bash interpreter). See below for a list of some basic commands.
   
4. Download the following file, with auxiliary settings for the startup of the command session in the cygwin terminal: [bash_feap.sh]. From the cygwin terminal move the downloaded file to our workspace and activate it for the next cygwin startup:
   $ mv '/cygdrive/C/Documents and Settings/pepe/Desktop/bash_feap.sh' .
   $ cat bash_feap.sh >> .bash_profile
   Finally close the cygwin terminal issuing the "exit" command, to open it newly with the new startup setup.
   In the windows bar at the bottom a large X symbol should appear which means that the X graphics server is running. To check it is functioning properly issue the following command:
   $ xclock &
   a graphic window with a clock should appear, once checked you may safely close this window.
   

Detailed instructions to install feap in Windows+Cygwin

1. Create a folder "bin", which will be included in the path for executables, and a folder "feap-models" where we shall incude the feap models.
   $ mkdir bin
   $ mkdir feap-models
   
2. Download FEAP:
   
   • feap81_cygwin.exe (executable binary file)
   Move this file to our cygwin workspace (assuming our user name in windows is pepe):
   $ mv '/cygdrive/C/Documents and Settings/pepe/Desktop/feap81_cygwin.exe' bin
   (If preferred, this may also be done with the windows file explorer, copying the files to C:\cygwin\home\pepe\bin\)
   
3. Check the proper operation of FEAP, running one of the following test cases:
   • Brasilian test (linear elasticity, static) [Ibrasil]
   • Taylor bar impact (large strain plasticity, dynamic) [Itayl]
   Download the file with the FEAP model data, copy in the work folder (same procedure as above), and from a terminal execute feap. At the end type "q" and twice the return key.

• Cygwin installation
  [Captura-01.PNG] [Captura-02.PNG] [Captura-03.PNG] [Captura-04.PNG] [Captura-05.PNG] [Captura-06.PNG] [Captura-07.PNG] [Captura-08.PNG] [Captura-09.PNG] [Captura-10.PNG] [Captura-11.PNG] [Captura-12.PNG] [Captura-13.PNG] [Captura-14.PNG] [Captura-15a.PNG] [Captura-15b.PNG]
• Copy the downloaded files to the appropriate folders and auxiliary commands:
  [Captura-16.PNG]
• Running FEAP program:
  [Captura-17.PNG] [Captura-18.PNG] [Captura-19.PNG]

More...

• It is possible to install additional packages from cygwin environment just by executing again the installation program "setup.exe" and selecting the desired additional packages. It can also be used to update the installed packages to the latest versions or to uninstall packages. Apart from the suggested packages many others are available for installation if wished: gimp for manipulating image files similar to "photoshop", xfig for drawing sketches and figures, tex/latex for typography of scientific and other texts, octave for numerical computations clone of the matlab language, C compilers (gcc) and fortran (gfortran), etc.
  
• Some of the basic shell commands in Linux /Unix:
  • ls : list the files in a directory use the option -l for a long listing
    
  • cd : change directory (folder)
    
  • rm : remove the file or files following (it is recommended to use the option -i to enforce interactive confirmation)
  • pwd : "print what directory", informs about the current folder
  • cp : copies file(s) to another folder or to the same folder with a different file name
  • mv : move files or change their name
  • cat : dumps the contents of a text file without pagination
  • less : dumps the contents of a text file with pagination
  • vi, joe : editors to see and modify if wished a text file
  • mkdir : make directory (folder)
    
  • man <command> : help on the use of command
  • The standard output from any command may be redirected with ">" to a file, or with ">>" appended to the end of an existing file.
    
  • ... and many more: consult any Linux/Unix manual