FEBio implements plugins, which are dynamic libraries that allow users to extend FEBio’s capabilities without having to recompile the entire code.  Instructions for building plugins can be found in the FEBio User’s Manual and Developer’s manual.

Plugins are submitted by developers independent of the FEBio project. Use at your own risk.

  • Reactive Hydrogel  15.23 MB
    Filename ReactiveHydrogelPlugin.zip
    Filesize 15.23 MB
    Version 1.0
    Date added February 26, 2024
    Downloaded 38 times
    Author Brandon Zimmerman
    This plugin implements material models formulated by Zimmerman et al. (Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids, 105568, 2024) to describe dynamic polymerization of the DNA hydrogels created by Cangialosi et al. (Science, 357(6356):1126-1130). The constitutive models are derived within a reactive electrochemomechanical framework. The two materials available in this plugin both use Flory-Huggins mixing free energy with either a Gaussian or non-Gaussian mechanical free energy to model growth of polyelectrolyte hydrogels. The non-Gaussian model allows the locking stretch of the gel to evolve as chemical reactions bind DNA in solute form to the solid matrix, making large swelling energetically favorable. Details are included in the plugin manual.
  • Holzapfel-Ogden Material  2.39 MB
    Filename HolzapfelOgdenMatl.zip
    Filesize 2.39 MB
    Version 1.0
    Date added March 26, 2021
    Downloaded 1000 times
    FEBio Version 3.2
    Author Sotirios Kakaletsis (kakalets@utexas.edu )
    This FEBio material plugin implements a nearly incompressible, uncoupled formulation of the constitutive model by Holzapfel and Ogden (2009), as incorporated in Kakaletsis et al. (Acta Biomaterialia, 123, 2021, pp 154-166). Originally derived for modeling passive myocardium, it can be used for other anisotropic fiber/sheet structured materials as well. As any other uncoupled material, it can be combined in a solid mixture with other laws, for example continuous fiber distribution materials. Detailed instructions are included in the Theory/User's Manual of the plugin.
  • HARPFE  983.52 KB
    Filename HARPFE.zip
    Filesize 983.52 KB
    Version 1
    Date added March 5, 2021
    Downloaded 150 times
    FEBio Version 3.2
    Living tissue is constantly in motion. This plugin implements motion estimation based on tagged magnetic resonance images, using harmonic phase analysis with finite elements (HARP-FE). The method can be used to calculate tissue displacement and deformation (strain) in the heart, the brain, the tongue, and many other organs. Details about its theory and implementation can be found in the article below: Gomez, et al. 3-D Measurements of Acceleration-Induced Brain Deformation via Harmonic Phase Analysis and Finite-Element Models. IEEE Trans Biomed Eng. 2019 May;66(5):1456-1467. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30296208/
  • FEBioHeat  4.59 MB
    Filename FEBioHeat.zip
    Filesize 4.59 MB
    Version 1.0
    Date added September 17, 2020
    Downloaded 1484 times
    FEBio Version 3.0
    Plugin Author Steve Maas
    This plugins allows FEBio to solve steady-state and transient heat transfer problems.
  • Wang-Shenoy Material  2.15 MB
    Filename Shenoy.zip
    Filesize 2.15 MB
    Version 1.0
    Date added April 29, 2019
    Downloaded 592 times
    Tags finite element modeling, hyper-elasticity, mrl, nonlinear constitutive modeling
    Plugin Author Steve A. Maas
    Plugin Support    MRL Plugin Forum
    FEBio Version 2.9
    This plugin implements the constitutive model by Wang et al. (Biophysical Journal, 107, 2014, pp:2592-2603). This novel material proposes a mechanism for long-range force transmission in fibrous matrices enabled by tension-driven alignment of fibers. In addition to the plugin file (Win x64 only), the zip file contains the source code and example problems.
  • FEBioChem  4.90 MB
    Filename FEBioChem.zip
    Filesize 4.90 MB
    Version 1.1
    Date added September 16, 2020
    Downloaded 590 times
    Tags chemical reactions, finite element modeling, mrl, reaction-diffusion
    FEBio Version 3.0
    Plugin Author Steve A. Maas
    Plugin Support    FEBio Forums
    Date updated September 16, 2020
    FEBioChem is a plugin that implements a solver for the non-linear reaction-diffusion-convection equations. It allows users to model chemical reactions in a non-deformable mixture framework. The chemical species are considered solutes that diffuse in a solvent but can also be bound to the solid phase of the mixture. This plugin replicates some functionality of the FEBioMix module, but since it assumes the matrix does not deform, many calculations can be optimized for improved performance. The plugin can also be used to solve traditional chemical reactions, without the mixture framework.
  • DataMap  1.50 MB
    Filename DataMap.zip
    Filesize 1.50 MB
    Version 1.0
    Date added April 29, 2019
    Downloaded 527 times
    Tags extrapolation, imhomogeneous, interpolation, mrl, sparse data
    Date updated September 7, 2017
    FEBio Version 2.9
    Plugin Author MRL
    Plugin Support    MRL Plugin Forum
    NOTE: The features in this plugin are now integrated in FEBio3 and users no longer need to install this plugin. It is retained here for users who want to use the datamap features in FEBio version 2.x. The DataMap plugin allows users to generate material parameter data that varies continuously between two surfaces in 3D space. The plugin interpolates the data to the underlying mesh independent of the type of mesh topology that has been used (e.g., trilinear hexahedron, quadratic tetrahedron, etc.).
  • PreStrain  2.04 MB
    Filename PreStrain.zip
    Filesize 2.04 MB
    Version 1.0
    Date added May 8, 2019
    Downloaded 1099 times
    Tags mrl, prestrain
    FEBio Version 2.9
    Plugin Author Steve Maas
    Plugin Support    MRL Plugin Forum
    NOTE: The features of this plugin are now integrated in FEBio3 and no longer requires installing a separate plugin. It is retained here for users who require this functionality in older versions of FEBio. Many biological tissues exhibit residual stresses in vivo. Residual stresses are usually characterized by pre-strain, which can be in situ strains (i.e. strain that exists in vivo, in the absence of loading), or residual strains (i.e. strains that exist after the tissue is excised from the body). This plugin implements a general framework for representing pre-strain in a finite element model using a method termed the pre-strain gradient approach. In contrast to previous computational methods for including pre-strains, it does not require physiological existence of a globally stress-free reference configuration or its computability. The methodology also addresses the issue of incompatibility of the pre-strain gradient with the reference geometry and provides ways to accommodate for discrepancies by either modifying the reference geometry or the applied pre-strain gradient. The method is described in detail in the manuscript:
    Maas SA, Erdemir A, Halloran JP, Weiss JA: A general framework for application of prestrain to computational models of biological materials. Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials, 61:499-510, 2016. DOI.
  • Trans Iso Mooney-Rivlin (Gordon 1966)  897.47 KB
    Filename Gordon1966_R2.zip
    Filesize 897.47 KB
    Version 1
    Date added October 17, 2018
    Downloaded 753 times
    Tags Gordon, muscle
    Date updated April 11, 2016
    FEBio Version 2.4
    Plugin Author Heiko Stark
    Plugin Support Heiko Stark
    This plugin is based on the transversely isotropic Mooney Rivlin material in FEBio but adds a stress term based on the force-length-curve by Gordon et al. (1966) for the active contraction. With this plugin, you can easily change the muscle properties to accommodate different muscle types.
  • AngioFE  8.12 MB
    Filename AngioFE2.zip
    Filesize 8.12 MB
    Version 2.0
    Date added April 29, 2019
    Downloaded 674 times
    Tags angiogenesis, mrl
    Plugin Author MRL
    Plugin Support    MRL Plugin Forum
    FEBio Version 2.9
    The AngioFE plugin simulates the mechanical interactions between growing neovessels and the deformation of the matrix in vitro. This plugin is provided so that interested readers may reproduce the results of the paper:
    Edgar LT, Maas SA, Guilkey JE, Weiss JA: A coupled model of neovessel growth and matrix mechanics describes and predicts angiogenesis in vitro. Biomechanics and Modeling in Mechanobiology, 14(4):767-782, 2015.
    Note that the current version is a major rewrite of the original work and addresses several issues with the original version presented in the paper mentioned above.
  • FEWarp  429.97 KB
    Filename FEWarp_for_febio3p8.zip
    Filesize 429.97 KB
    Version 1.0 Previous versions
    Date added December 20, 2022
    Downloaded 1044 times
    Tags mrl, warping
    FEBio Version 3.8
    Plugin Author Steve Maas
    Plugin Support    MRL Plugin Forum
    The FEWarp plugin implements the Hyperelastic Warping deformable image registration algorithm developed by Weiss and colleagues. The method is based on the principles of nonlinear solid mechanics to allow objective tracking of large deformations and rotations and the concomitant determination of stresses within the deforming body. The approach may be applied to physical deformations that arise in mechanics as well as to non-physical deformations such as the inter- and intrasubject registration of image data. For the physical deformation case, the goal is to quantify the kinematics and the kinetics of the deformations. In the nonphysical case, only the kinematics of the deformations are sought. An overview of the algorithms implemented by the plugin can be found in the following book chapter:
    Veress AI, Phatak NS, *Weiss JA: Deformable Image Registration with Hyperelastic Warping. In Handbook of Biomedical Image Analysis: Vol. 3, Registration Models (Part A), Editor(s): Suri, Wilson, Laxminarayan, pp 487-534, 2005. [URL].
  • NeoHookeanPI  4.11 MB
    Filename NeoHookeanPI.zip
    Filesize 4.11 MB
    Version 1.0
    Date added September 17, 2020
    Downloaded 2140 times
    Tags mrl, plugin example
    Plugin Author MRL
    Plugin Support    MRL Plugin Forum
    FEBio Version 3.0
    NOTE: This plugin has been moved to the GitHub repo NeoHookeanPlugin .Please check out the repo from GitHub instead of downloading the source code from here.  The NeoHookeanPI plugin is a sample material plugin that implements the neoHookean constitutive model already available in FEBio. This plugin can be used as a template for implementing other material plugins by following the same syntax.