SDT versus other MATLAB FEM codes

Question Can it do anything better than other MATLAB based FEM codes?

Answer CalFem (Computer Aided Learning of the Finite Element Method) has a pedagogical background. The SDT seeks a compromise between performance and flexibility in extensions for industrial size problems (thousands of elements, tens of thousands of DOFs).

FEMLAB (from COMSOL) includes a geometry modeler now treating 3-D problems. It's CAD interface while great for the Matlab environment is poor compared to any professional CAD environment. Its meshing and multiphysics capabilities are however quite interesting. The SDT has a different objective. It interfaces with professional CAD environments (Ideas, Catia, ...) and the meshing is assumed to be done within those software packages. Since the objective is to manipulate models rather than create complex parts, meshing tools in the SDT are limited to basic operations, such as extrusion, revolution, repetition, ...

The SDT also introduces specific solvers for typical operations used in structural dynamics. F. Hemez from Los Alamos National Labs commented: Your assembly is 5 to 10 times faster than my in-house Fortran code. Your Lanczos eigenvalue solver is at least 10 times faster than anything I have seen in MATLAB.