Welcome to VirtualLab’s documentation!#

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VirtualLab is a modular platform which enables the user to run simulations of physical laboratory experiments, i.e., their ‘virtual counterparts’.

The motivation for creating a virtual laboratory is manyfold, for example:

  • Planning and optimisation of physical experiments.

  • Ability to directly compare experimental and simulation data, useful to better understand both physical and virtual methods.

  • Augment sparse experimental data with simulation data for increased insight.

  • Generating synthetic data to train machine learning models.

The software is mostly written in python, and is fully parametrised such that it can be run in ‘batch mode’, i.e., non-interactively, via the command line. This is in order to facilitate automation and so that many virtual experiments can be conducted in parallel.

Due to the modularity of the platform, by nature, VirtualLab is continually expanding. The bulk of the ‘virtual experiments’ currently included are carried out in the FE solver Code_Aster. However, there are also modules to simulate X-ray computed tomography, irradiation damage of materials and electromagnetics.

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The pre and post processing is carried out using various software, for example:

While this platform has been written for use from the command line, some capabilities have been included to use GUIs offered by the various software for debugging and training.