<p>numerical modelling is a vast field and the tool to address your problem depends strongly on ... your problem and your approach!</p>
<p>Are you a master student? a PhD student with very short time to wrap up your thesis? A plumber with an intelectual interest in plate tectonics?</p>
<p>In short: Comsol may be an adequate tool. However, with large displacements (larger than the element volumes), you may want to avoid Finite Element method and probably better to have a look at other methods.
You can find a nice description of alternative methods in the book &quot;Introduction to Numerical Geodynamic Modelling&quot; from Professor Taras Gerya. He sugests to use Matlab, but you can probably follow all the book simply with Python.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-11-23T21:29:27.363Z
2020-11-23T21:29:27.363Z
EarlGrey
<p>As a beginner for <strong>CFD modelling of plate subduction</strong>, I heard comsol to be a good software. Can anybody suggests alternatives and the demerits of using <em>COMSOL Multiphysics</em>? Thank you.</p>

<geophysics><plate-tectonics><models><fluid-dynamics><subduction>
Is COMSOL Multiphysics good for subduction CFD modelling? Are there alternatives?
papun
# Is COMSOL Multiphysics good for subduction CFD modelling? Are there alternatives?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2020-11-22)

As a beginner for **CFD modelling of plate subduction**, I heard comsol to be a good software. Can anybody suggests alternatives and the demerits of using *COMSOL Multiphysics*? Thank you.

**Tags:** geophysics, plate-tectonics, models, fluid-dynamics, subduction


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2020-11-23. Score: 2 | Accepted answer

numerical modelling is a vast field and the tool to address your problem depends strongly on ... your problem and your approach!

Are you a master student? a PhD student with very short time to wrap up your thesis? A plumber with an intelectual interest in plate tectonics?

In short: Comsol may be an adequate tool. However, with large displacements (larger than the element volumes), you may want to avoid Finite Element method and probably better to have a look at other methods.
You can find a nice description of alternative methods in the book "Introduction to Numerical Geodynamic Modelling" from Professor Taras Gerya. He sugests to use Matlab, but you can probably follow all the book simply with Python.


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