Julia Language Implementation of the Finite Element Method for Linear Instability of Plane Frames: An Efficient Alternative for Structural Analysis

Abstract

This paper introduces the Julia programming language as a dynamic, cost-effective, and efficient framework for implementing structural analysis packages. To achieve this, the finite element method was implemented for plane frames addressing the elastic instability problem through the Finite Element Method (FEM). Julia is a language open source, multiplatform, high-level and high-performance for technical and scientific computing, its compiler allows you to achieve speeds comparable to languages such as C and FORTRAN, but with more productive development dynamics due to its programming flexibility. Benchmarks between Julia and MATLAB are employed to discuss the processing costs, the programming techniques and paradigms used for computational performance. The results demonstrate that Julia performed the same analysis as the language used for comparison in 88.40% of the time, in addition to the fact that in loops comparisons case it reached 41.7% of the time for iteration, confirming its significant potential as a development tool of computational packages for structural analysis and scientific computing in general.