FreeCAD FEM Workbench Setup

Set up Elmer and Z88 FEM Simulators with FreeCAD using Docker
Categories:
Tags:

Getting started with a new simulation tool is hard enough without needing to worry about the installation. There’s a lot to love about the FEM Workbench that ships with FreeCAD. Interoperability and ease of setup isn’t it.

Out of the box, the Flatpak build includes:

  • Gmsh (mesher)
  • CalculiX (solver)

But it’s missing:

  • Netgen
  • Elmer
  • Z88
  • Mystran

This Dockerfile pulls in:

  • The FreeCAD AppImage (which includes Netgen)
  • Elmer FEM (via PPA)
  • Z88 Aurora (via official tarball)

Mystran isn’t included — they don’t provide Linux binaries. I may add a build later if needed.

GitHub repo:
https://github.com/snhobbs/freecad-fem-docker