OpenSees (the Open System for Earthquake Engineering Simulation) is an

object-oriented Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm based on the concept of '' objects''. Objects can contain data (called fields, attributes or properties) and have actions they can perform (called procedures or methods and impleme ...

software framework created during the

National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...

-sponsored era (1997-2007) of the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research
PEER
Center. OpenSees allows users to create

finite element Finite element method (FEM) is a popular method for numerically solving differential equations arising in engineering and mathematical modeling. Typical problem areas of interest include the traditional fields of structural analysis, heat tran ...

applications for simulating the response of structural and geotechnical systems subjected to

earthquakes An earthquakealso called a quake, tremor, or tembloris the shaking of the Earth's surface resulting from a sudden release of energy in the lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from those so weak they c ...

. This framework was developed by Frank McKenna and Gregory L. Fenves with significant contributions from Michael H. Scott, Terje Haukaas, Armen Der Kiureghian, Remo M. de Souza, Filip C. Filippou, Silvia Mazzoni, and Boris Jeremic. OpenSees is primarily written in C++ and uses several Fortran numerical libraries for linear equation solving.

Licensing

The license permits the use, reproduction, modification, and distribution by educational, research, and non-profit entities for non-commercial purposes. Use, reproduction, and modification by other entities is allowed for internal purposes, but these entities cannot redistribute the program or its derivatives.

Usage

Users of OpenSees create applications by writing scripts in either the

Tcl TCL or Tcl or TCLs may refer to: Business * TCL Technology, a Chinese consumer electronics and appliance company ** TCL Electronics, a subsidiary of TCL Technology * Texas Collegiate League, a collegiate baseball league * Trade Centre Limited ...

Python Python may refer to: Snakes * Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia ** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia * Python (mythology), a mythical serpent Computing * Python (prog ...

programming language. OpenSees developers manage the source code a
GitHub
Overpass

]

Acronym

The proper acronym capitalization for the "Open System for Earthquake Engineering Simulation" is OpenSees, as opposed to OpenSEES. This reflects the same unconventional capitalization of

History

Prior to taking on the name "OpenSees," the framework was simply called "G3" in reference to the name of th
PEER
research group tasked with simulation development. The doctoral thesis of Frank McKenna on parallel object-oriented structural analysis formed the basis for "G3." The current version as of March 2024 is 3.6.0.

References

{{Reflist

External links

OpenSees WebpageOpenSeesPy PyPI pageOpenSeesRT PyPI page
Numerical software Earthquake engineering Finite element software for Linux