Welcome to
The coupling library for partitioned multi-physics simulations.
preCICE is an open-source coupling library and ecosystem for general partitioned multi-physics and multi-scale simulations, including surface and volume coupling.
Partitioned means that preCICE couples existing programs/solvers capable of simulating a subpart of the complete physics involved in a simulation. This allows for the high flexibility that is needed to keep a decent time-to-solution for complex coupled problems.
The software offers convenient methods for transient equation coupling, communication, time interpolation, and data mapping.
Prepared for the next generation of multi-physics simulations
Minimally invasive integration
- Elegant library approach
- High-level API in C++, C, Fortran, Python, Matlab
Coupling of arbitrary many programs
- Arbitrary combinations of strong and weak interactions
- Arbitrary many solvers
State-of-the-art numerical methods
- Robust quasi-Newton acceleration
- Radial-basis function data mapping
Scalability up to complete supercomputers
- Pure peer-to-peer approach
- Support of heterogenous hardware (CPU/GPU)
- Efficient also on a laptop
Ready-to-use with your favourite open-source solver
Several free and proprietary codes are currently coupled with preCICE. Pick one of our official adapters below or check out our community projects.
What our community is saying
—Kyle Davis
University of the Free State, Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, South Africa
—Derek Risseeuw
Aerodynamics, Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, TU Delft, The Netherlands
—Marta Camps Santasmasas
Aerodynamics research group, MACE, The University of Manchester, UK
Academic at heart, 100% free software
preCICE has been developed by three generations of doctoral candidates from the Chair of Scientific Computing at the Technical University of Munich and from the Institute for Parallel and Distributed Systems at the University of Stuttgart. We develop everything openly on GitHub, the preCICE library is licensed under LGPLv3, and every other component is developed under compatible free software licenses. More information.
You can cite the preCICE library using the following paper. Please also consider citing the adapters you use, as well as the preCICE Distribution for reproducibility. You can find the respective references in our literature guide.
preCICE v2: A sustainable and user-friendly coupling library
Gerasimos Chourdakis, Kyle Davis, Benjamin Rodenberg, Miriam Schulte, Frédéric Simonis, Benjamin Uekermann et al., 2022. In Open Research Europe, 2:51.
Citations of preCICE v2 paper (187)
Join the community!
We develop everything in the open, with continuous feedback by a vivid community. Be part of it:
Ask for help and help othersin thepreCICE forumand register to receive news.- Directly edit the documentation. We review and help - nothing can go wrong. - Report issues on GitHuband help us solve them for everyone. Contributecode and simulation examples - we help you with guidelines, tools, and reviews.Meet the communityin one of thepreCICE workshops and conference sessions.- Subscribe to our quarterly newsletterincluding:- New publications
- New features
- New adapters, bindings, tools, tutorials, and more
- Upcoming events and news from the community
The quarterly preCICE newsletter
You support preCICE – preCICE supports you
As the developers of preCICE, we enjoy supporting our academic and industry users, but due to the growing demand, we are not able to service all support requests any more. We are introducing preCICE support as a way to contribute to sustainable open-source software development and to ensure preCICE is developed and maintained in the future. Supporting preCICE comes with several benefits:
Increased success ratefor your research proposal (include preCICE as a partner, software provider, or sub-contractor)Priority supportand direct access to the preCICE developers- Private, on-site support and bespoke training
We offer different levels of support for industry and academia.
Frequently asked questions (FAQ)
Can preCICE be used for volume coupling?
Yes. In preCICE v3 there have been many changes and improvements regarding large meshes. The following has ...
What are best practices to write a new adapter?
There are guidelines for adapters, as well as for application cases, as part of the ecosystem standardization ...
Can preCICE be used for one-way coupling?
Yes! Several people are doing this already. Even though there may be other ways to do one-way coupling, it may ...
Tried and tested by a global community
Through the community-driven development approach, preCICE has become one of the leading coupling libraries for multi-physics simulations both in academia and industry. The wide variety of application fields ranges from aerodynamics to astronautics, automotive manufacturing, wind energy, biomechanics, biomimetics, marine engineering, nuclear fusion, reactor safety, geophysical systems, and many more.
How does it look like?
In this tutorial, we couple the CFD code OpenFOAM with a C++ rigid body solver for fluid-structure interaction, using a serial-explicit coupling, as defined in the preCICE configuration file. OpenFOAM loads a ready-to-use adapter, while the C++ code uses the preCICE API. OpenFOAM starts and waits for the other code. After they both start, they find each other perform a black-box coupled simulation.