LCM

LCM (Laboratory for Computational Mechanics) is a fork of Albany, an implicit, unstructured grid, finite element code for the solution and analysis of multiphysics problems. LCM focuses on computational solid mechanics and thermo-mechanics, with nearly 200 regression tests demonstrating capabilities across a wide variety of problems.

Features

Analysis of complex multiphysics problems

Solid mechanics simulation of a notched cylinder using the alternating Schwarz-based multi-scale coupling capability in LCM.

Capabilities

• Large-scale parallel simulations (2.1+ billion DOFs) using MPI
• Automatic differentiation via Sacado
• Constitutive models: linear elasticity, J2 plasticity, crystal plasticity, hyperelasticity, damage models
• Schwarz alternating method for multi-scale coupling
• Arctic Coastal Erosion (ACE) model: coupled thermo-mechanical model with permafrost constitutive models, part of the InterFACE project
• Data transfer between coupled domains via DataTransferKit (DTK), bundled in-tree

Prerequisites

LCM requires Trilinos and the following system packages.

RHEL / Fedora

sudo dnf install \
  blas blas-devel boost boost-devel boost-openmpi boost-openmpi-devel \
  cmake gcc-c++ gcc-gfortran gtest-devel git \
  hdf5 hdf5-devel hdf5-openmpi hdf5-openmpi-devel \
  lapack lapack-devel netcdf netcdf-devel netcdf-openmpi netcdf-openmpi-devel \
  openblas openblas-devel openmpi openmpi-devel environment-modules

Optional (for clang builds):

sudo dnf install clang clang-devel

CMake 3.27 or newer (including 4.x) is required. If your system cmake is older:

spack install cmake@3.27

Ubuntu

sudo apt install \
  libblas-dev libboost-dev libboost-program-options-dev \
  cmake g++ gfortran git \
  libhdf5-openmpi-dev liblapack-dev libnetcdf-dev \
  libopenmpi-dev mpi-default-bin environment-modules

Sandia CEE LAN (hpws / cee-* machines)

No system packages need to be installed. The lcm build script automatically detects CEE LAN hosts by hostname and loads all required compilers and TPLs from the SEMS/AUE module system (/projects/sems).

No .bashrc edits are needed. The lcm script sources the SEMS module init, loads AUE/SEMS modules (GCC 12.3, OpenMPI 4.1.6, CMake 3.31, Boost, HDF5, NetCDF, binutils), and exports all necessary environment variables internally. You only need LCM_DIR and the lcm symlink.

Potential conflicts: If your .bashrc already sources the SEMS init script or loads AUE/sierra-devel modules, those may conflict with the versions the lcm script loads. Either remove those lines from .bashrc or start from a clean shell (env -i bash --login). In particular, pre-loaded sierra-devel modules set compiler and MPI paths that will clash with the AUE modules that lcm expects.

Currently only GCC builds are supported on CEE (module serial-gcc-release).

Quick Start

1. Clone repositories

mkdir ~/LCM && cd ~/LCM

git clone -b develop https://github.com/trilinos/Trilinos.git
git clone https://github.com/sandialabs/LCM.git

LCM builds against the develop branch of Trilinos, tracking its head rather than any pinned commit.

2. Set up environment (optional, for interactive use only)

The lcm build script is self-contained: it auto-detects LCM_DIR, sets MODULEPATH, sources the Environment Modules init script, and loads the requested build module itself (default: release). No .bashrc changes are needed to build.

Environment Modules setup is only needed for interactive use — that is, running module load yourself so that Albany and the Trilinos tools (decomp, epu, exodiff) are on your PATH. For that, add to ~/.bashrc:

export LCM_DIR=~/LCM
module use $LCM_DIR/LCM/doc/lcm/modulefiles

Log out and back in, or source ~/.bashrc.

3. Create the lcm symlink

cd ~/LCM
ln -s LCM/doc/lcm/build/lcm .

4. Build and test

cd ~/LCM

./lcm clean trilinos          # clean previous builds
./lcm config trilinos 16      # configure Trilinos (16 = parallel threads)
./lcm build trilinos 16       # build Trilinos

./lcm clean lcm               # clean previous LCM build
./lcm config lcm 16           # configure LCM
./lcm build lcm 16            # build LCM
./lcm test lcm                # run test suite

Or do everything at once:

./lcm all 16

5. Available commands

lcm clean   <package>        Clean build (and install for trilinos)
lcm config  <package> [N]    Configure package
lcm build   <package> [N]    Build package with N threads (default: nproc)
lcm test    <package>        Run tests
lcm all     [N]              Full pipeline: clean + config + build + test
lcm help                     Show help

Module System

Modules configure the compiler, architecture, and build type. Available configurations:

Module	Compiler	Build Type
serial-gcc-release	GCC	Release (optimized)
serial-gcc-debug	GCC	Debug (symbols)
serial-clang-release	Clang	Release
serial-clang-debug	Clang	Debug

The release module is an alias for serial-gcc-release.

Select a configuration for a build with the --module flag (the lcm script loads the module itself):

./lcm all 16 --module=serial-clang-release

For interactive use (running Albany and Trilinos tools from PATH), load the module in your shell instead:

module load serial-clang-release

Build directories are named by configuration, e.g. lcm-build-serial-gcc-release. A corresponding Trilinos installation must exist for each configuration.

Running

After building, the Albany executable is in the build directory:

cd ~/LCM/lcm-build-serial-gcc-release/tests/LCM/Pressure
mpiexec -np 4 ~/LCM/lcm-build-serial-gcc-release/src/Albany input_tetra4.yaml

The module system adds build and Trilinos install directories to PATH, so after loading a module, Albany and Trilinos tools (decomp, epu, exodiff) are available directly.

Testing

The test suite is in tests/ and runs via CTest:

./lcm test lcm

Individual tests can be run from their subdirectory:

cd ~/LCM/lcm-build-serial-gcc-release/tests/LCM/Pressure
ctest

Many tests run in parallel using up to 4 MPI ranks.

Nightly Tests

The clone-build-test-dash.sh script clones Trilinos and LCM from scratch, builds with each supported compiler, and submits results to CDash. It lives at LCM/doc/lcm/test/clone-build-test-dash.sh but must be run from a copy in the workspace root: it sets LCM_DIR to the current directory and deletes and re-clones the LCM repository, so it cannot run from inside the repository itself. Copy it into place once:

cp LCM/doc/lcm/test/clone-build-test-dash.sh ~/LCM/

It is typically run via cron:

# In crontab:
00 00 * * 1-5 cd /home/lcm/LCM; bash -l -c "./clone-build-test-dash.sh"

Contributing

Development discussion: https://github.com/sandialabs/LCM/issues

We follow the Google C++ Style Guide. Use clang-format with the .clang-format file in src/LCM/:

clang-format -i <source file>

Please ensure all tests pass before pushing changes.

Contact

• Alejandro Mota (amota@sandia.gov)
• Irina Tezaur (ikalash@sandia.gov)