Matrix-Free Methods for Finite-Strain Elasticity: Automatic Code Generation with No Performance Overhead

TL;DR

This paper presents a method for automatic code generation of matrix-free tangent evaluations in finite-strain elasticity, demonstrating improved performance over hand-written code through automatic differentiation and strategic computation approaches.

Contribution

It introduces an automatic differentiation-based code generation approach for matrix-free finite-strain elasticity calculations, eliminating performance overhead.

Findings

AD-generated code outperforms hand-written code in efficiency

On-the-fly evaluation and caching strategies impact performance

Automatic code generation simplifies implementation without sacrificing speed

Abstract

This study explores matrix-free tangent evaluations in finite-strain elasticity with the use of automatically-generated code for the quadrature-point level calculations. The code generation is done via automatic differentiation (AD) with AceGen. We compare hand-written and AD-generated codes under two computing strategies: on-the-fly evaluation and caching intermediate results. The comparison reveals that the AD-generated code achieves superior performance in matrix-free computations.