LYNX

LYNX (Lithosphere dYnamics Numerical toolboX) is another multiphysics modelling solution developed in Section 4.5 at GFZ. LYNX is also based on the flexible, object-oriented numerical framework MOOSE (developed at the Idaho National Laboratories).

LYNX is a novel numerical simulator for modelling thermo-poromechanical coupled processes driving the deformation dynamics of the lithosphere. The formulation adopted in LYNX relies on an efficient implementation of a thermodynamically consistent visco-elasto-plastic rheology with anisotropic porous-visco-plastic damage feedback. The main target is to capture the multiphysics coupling responsible for semi-brittle and semi-ductile behaviour of porous rocks as also relevant to strain localization and faulting processes. More information on the governing equations, their derivation and their implementation together with a list of synthetic and real case applications can be found in Jacquey and Cacace (2020a) and Jacquey and Cacace (2020b).

Versions
LYNX is available from two repositories:

For more information see LYNX at Helmholtz RSD.

User group
International user community from geosciences

Features

  • Object-orientation: flexible modular structure within easy to be extended modules by the user
  • Geometric agnosticism: 1D/2D/3D Finite Elements from the user required
  • Hybrid parallelism: multi-threading and MPI
  • Proved scalability on HPC architectures - JUWELS cluster Module at JSC

Realistic physics-based rheological description of lithosphere deformation dynamics based on:

  • Explicit incorporation of the lithosphere visco-elasto-plastic rheology including nonlinear feedback effects from the energetics of the system
  • its extension to account for time-dependent brittle behavior via an overstress (viscoplastic) formulation
  • Thermodynamically consistent formulation of semi-brittle semi-ductile deformation modes - brittle deformation via damage mechanics and for ductile deformation via a rate-dependent viscoplastic formulation
  • Poro-damage feedback via dynamic porosity (volumetric mechanical response)
  • Implicit and efficient numerical implementation within a limited amount of internal iterations
  • Use of Automatic Differentation techniques to compute the full Jacobian contribution of the system matrix

References

Jacquey, A. B., & Cacace, M. (2019). LYNX: Lithosphere dYnamic Numerical toolboX, a MOOSE-based application (1.0). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3355376

Jacquey, A. B., & Cacace, M. (2020a). Multiphysics modeling of a Brittle‐Ductile lithosphere: 1. Explicit Visco‐Elasto‐Plastic formulation and its numerical implementation. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 125(1). https://doi.org/10.1029/2019jb018474

Jacquey, A. B., & Cacace, M. (2020b). Multiphysics modeling of a Brittle‐Ductile lithosphere: 2. Semi‐brittle, semi‐ductile deformation and damage rheology. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 125(1). https://doi.org/10.1029/2019jb018475

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