Flexodeal Lite v1.6.1 (Feb 21, 2026)

Flexodeal Lite 1.6.1 (Feb 21, 2026)

Here's what's new in Version 1.6.1.

Upgrade Steps

• None. Use the code in the same way you would use Flexodeal Lite v1.6.X and above.

New Features (by @javieralmonacid )

• Muscle velocity and fibre orientation fields were output per component in ParaView files. Now, they are immediately viewable as vectors in ParaView. This allows faster computation of glyphs and steamtracer objects. The latter is important to create visualizations of muscle fibres.

Breaking Changes

• None.

Bug Fixes & Minor Updates

• Velocity at timestep 0 and 1 was output as zero. This was because we were calling output_results() before update_timestep(). The calling order was updated in the Solid<dim>::run() function.

Flexodeal Lite v1.6.0 (Feb 17, 2026)

Flexodeal Lite 1.6.0 (Feb 17, 2026)

Here's what's new in Version 1.6.0.

Upgrade Steps

• CMake v3.13.4 or higher required.
• Use the code in the same way you would use Flexodeal Lite v1.3.X and above.

New Features

• The way to work with different parameters and control points has been modified. The (now deprecated) call:

./dynamic-muscle parameters.prm control_points_strain.dat control_points_activation.dat

is now equivalent to

./flexodeal-lite -PARAMETERS=parameters.prm -BDY_STRAIN=control_points_strain.dat -ACTIVATION=control_points_activation.dat

• The modification above allowed us to introduce an examples folder with different combinations of parameters and control point files. Three new examples have been introduced: ascending limb (AL) contraction, isometric contraction (IC), and cyclic contraction (CC).
• The code has been tested with deal.II v9.7 in Intel and ARM architectures. It should still work with deal.II v9.5 and v9.6.

Breaking Changes

• None.

Bug Fixes & Minor Updates

• Fixed: max_iterations_lin had been defined as double instead of int.

Flexodeal Lite v1.5.4 (Apr 1, 2025)

Flexodeal Lite 1.5.4 (Apr 1, 2025)

Here's what's new in Version 1.5.4.

Upgrade Steps

• None required. Use the code in the same way you would use Flexodeal Lite v1.3.X and above.

New Features

• Velocity vector and strain rate field are now available as VTK outputs (via projection).

Breaking Changes

• None.

Bug Fixes & Minor Updates

• Fixed: muscle base material energy was shown in terminal as muscle active energy and vice versa. Outputs in CSV files are still correct.

Flexodeal Lite v1.5.3 (Mar 9, 2025)

Flexodeal Lite 1.5.3 (Mar 9, 2025)

Here's what's new in Version 1.5.3.

Upgrade Steps

• None required. Use the code in the same way you would use Flexodeal Lite v1.3.X and above.

New Features

• None.

Breaking Changes

• None.

Bug Fixes & Minor Updates

• Changed 1/3 by 1.0/3.0 in some getters for non-bar quantities. This slightly modifies the outputs of the code since only bar quantities go into the FE formulation.

Flexodeal Lite v1.5.2 (Mar 9, 2025)

Flexodeal Lite 1.5.2 (Mar 9, 2025)

Here's what's new in Version 1.5.2.

Upgrade Steps

• None required. Use the code in the same way you would use FlexodealLite v1.3.X and above.

New Features

• None.

Breaking Changes

• None.

Bug Fixes & Minor Updates

• Added missing strain_rate_naught factor in the third term of c_bar. This bug does not seem to affect convergence.

Flexodeal Lite v1.5.1 (Feb 25, 2025)

Flexodeal Lite 1.5.1 (Feb 25, 2025)

Here's what's new in Version 1.5.1.

Upgrade Steps

• None required. Use the code in the same way you would use FlexodealLite v1.3.X and above.

New Features

• Implemented the Solid<dim>::output_cell_data_main_variables and Solid<dim>::output_cell_data_tensors to export binary files containing quadrature point information. These files are not exported by default since they are rather large files. See the README.md file for more information.

Breaking Changes

• None.

Bug Fixes & Minor Updates

• None.

Flexodeal Lite v1.5.0 (Dec 2, 2024)

Flexodeal Lite 1.5.0 (Dec 2, 2024)

Here's what's new in Version 1.5.0.

Upgrade Steps

• None required. Use the code in the same way you would use FlexodealLite v1.3.X and above.

New Features

• Implemented the Marker<dim> class, a generalization of the Point<dim> class meant to implement u_left, u_mid, u_right displacement-tracking points and the four points in the mid cross section used to compute bulging. It is now possible to add an arbitrary number of markers using the markers.dat file.

Breaking Changes

• Removed output_bulging_info since this function only works for the cuboidal geometry. As an alternative, we are now outputting the displacement at these four points in the displacements-3d.csv file so that bulging can be computed elsewhere.
• subsection Measurement locations in parameters.prm now only stores the file's name containing the markers (i.e., markers.dat).

Bug Fixes & Minor Updates

• Renamed ouput_displacement_at_select_locations to output_displacement_at_select_locations (fixed typo).

Flexodeal Lite v1.4.1 (Nov 13, 2024)

Flexodeal Lite 1.4.1 (Nov 13, 2024)

Here's what's new in Version 1.4.1.

Upgrade Steps

• None required. Use the code in the same way you would use FlexodealLite v1.3.X and above.

Breaking Changes

• None.

New Features

• The output_forces function has been modified. Before, unavailable data at quadrature points (QPs), such as stresses, was computed from cell (voxel) QPs according to their enumeration. For example, the stress at face QP k=1 was taken as the stress at cell QP k=1. This works fine as long as the stresses over the entire cell are more or less the same. However, if there are large variations of stresses over the same cell, then this approach may not work. For this reason, the face QP data is now taken from the closest cell QP. This means that forces computed with previous versions of Flexodeal might have slightly different magnitudes compared to this version. Nevertheless, qualitative-type statements should remain valid. Review the commit 37ea35c for more information about how this was implemented.

Bug Fixes & Minor Updates

• None.

Flexodeal Lite v1.4.0 (Oct 29, 2024)

Flexodeal Lite 1.4.0 (Oct 29, 2024)

Here's what's new in Version 1.4.0.

Upgrade Steps

• None required. Use the code in the same way you would use FlexodealLite v1.3.X

Breaking Changes

• None.

New Features

• The function output_gearing_info was updated. The columns in the output are now:
  • Time [s].
  • Prescribed velocity in the x component [m/s].
  • X component of the mean muscle velocity vector over the middle slab [m/s].
  • Y component of the mean muscle velocity vector over the middle slab [m/s].
  • Z component of the mean muscle velocity vector over the middle slab [m/s].
  • Norm of the mean muscle velocity vector over the middle slab [m/s].
  • Mean fibre strain rate over the middle slab [unitless].
  • Initial fibre length [m].
  • Maximum unloaded strain rate [1/s].
  • Mean fibre velocity [m/s] computed as (mean fibre strain rate * initial fibre length * maximum unloaded strain rate).
  • Volume of the slab used to compute the averages above (m^3).
• Added output_bulging_info. This is meant to compute the bulging of the block in the middle cross-section. The measuring locations correspond to the middle points on each side of the square forming the cross-section. Thus, the CSV output contains the following columns:
  • Time [s].
  • Displacement of the middle point on the left side of the square [m] (u left).
  • Displacement of the middle point on the right side of the square [m] (u right).
  • Displacement of the middle point in the top of the square [m] (u top).
  • Displacement of the middle point in the bottom of the square [m] (u bottom).

Bug Fixes & Minor Updates

• Added missing semicolon in fibre orientation exception (caught by an M2 processor when compiling with deal.II v9.6).
• Updated README.md with an easier way to clone the repo (using the public address rather than SSH keys).

Flexodeal Lite v1.3.4 (May 16, 2024)

Flexodeal Lite 1.3.4 (May 15, 2024)

Here's what's new in Version 1.3.4.

Upgrade Steps

• None required. Use the code in the same way you would use FlexodealLite v1.3.X

Breaking Changes

• Removed old technical reports that were never updated.

New Features

• None

Bug Fixes & Minor Updates

• Updated documentation.