At the heart of any finite element simulation is the assembly of matrices and vectors from discrete variational forms. We propose a general interface between problem-specific and general-purpose components of finite element programs. This interface is called Unified Form-assembly Code (UFC). A wide range of finite element problems is covered, including mixed finite elements and discontinuous Galerkin methods. We discuss how the UFC interface enables implementations of variational form evaluation to be independent of mesh and linear algebra components. UFC does not depend on any external libraries, and is released into the public domain.
@article{arxiv.1205.3039,
title = {Unified Framework for Finite Element Assembly},
author = {Martin Sandve Alnæs and Anders Logg and Kent-Andre Mardal and Ola Skavhaug and Hans Petter Langtangen},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1205.3039},
year = {2012}
}