Julia Language in Computational Mechanics: A New Competitor

Numerical methods are the most popular tools in computational mechanics and have been used to tackle various practical engineering problems. However, the most common programming languages used for implementing numerical methods do not effectively balance the demands of productivity and efficiency. To address the most computationally intensive areas of numerical computing with the increased abstraction and productivity provided by a high-level language, the Julia language was released by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2012. The Julia language is an open-source programming language that presents simple syntax and satisfactory performance; this is particularly useful for scientific computing. In this paper, we present a comprehensive survey on the use of the Julia language in computational mechanics. First, we introduce the existing numerical computing packages developed in the Julia language and their relevant applications. Second, we analyze the capabilities of the Julia language in the development of software packages for computational mechanics. Finally, we discuss the open issues regarding the Julia language and the challenges faced when using the Julia language in computational mechanics.