Project Chrono
| Developer(s) | Alessandro Tasora, Dan Negrut, et al.[1][2] |
|---|---|
| Written in | C, C++ |
| Operating system | Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux |
| Type | Physics engine |
| License | BSD License |
Project Chrono is a platform-independent, open source physics-based modelling and simulation infrastructure. The core of Project Chrono is the Chrono::Engine middleware, an object-oriented library whose C++ API can be used to develop simulation software. The other components of the Project Chrono ecosystems are:
- Chrono::Parallel, a library for enabling parallel computation in Chrono
- Chrono::Vehicle, which provides support for vehicle dynamics simulation
- Chrono::FEA, which provides support for linear and nonlinear Finite Element Analysis
- Chrono::FSI, which provides support for Fluid-Solid Interaction problems
- Chrono::PyEngine, which enables one to use Chrono::Engine in Python
- Chrono::SolidWorks, an add-in for SolidWorks©, which can be used to export 3D models and geometries from a CAD file into Chrono
Development Team
Chrono is a community effort, led by the University of Wisconsin-Madison (Dan Negrut) and Università degli Studi di Parma, Italy (Alessandro Tasora).
History
The first version of the Chrono::Engine was developed in 1998 by Prof. Alessandro Tasora when he was a student at the Politecnico di Milano. It was the result of a thesis in Mechanical Engineering. Originally, Chrono::Engine was meant to be a multibody simulation tool for robotics and biomechanics applications. Until 2002, Chrono::Engine was tightly linked to the Realsoft3D modeller. In 2002-2005 the software was gradually reorganized in the form of a standalone library, just like it is today. Alessandro started working in 2005 with Professor Mihai Anitescu from University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratories. Their work strengthened the handling of large frictional contact models in Chrono. Professor Dan Negrut joined the Project Chrono effort in 2007. The members of Simulation-Based Engineering Lab (SBEL) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have been active in its development ever since. We took the decision to release Chrono as open source in 2013, when we started to use the name Project Chrono to recognize the fact that this software infrastructure had become a multi-physics simulation engine. Chrono’s biggest break came in 2014, when the US Army decided to invest US $1.8 million in its development as an open source platform for physics-based modelling and simulation. Chrono development is going strong with the next release planned for August 15, 2016.
Licensing
Chrono is copyrighted by Project Chrono, a nonprofit set up in the US, and released under a BSD 3 license.