Automatic differentiation of C++ codes for large-scale scientific computing

We discuss computing first derivatives for models based on elements, such as large-scale finite-element PDE discretizations, implemented in the C++ programming language. We use a hybrid technique of automatic differentiation (AD) and manual assembly, with local element-level derivatives computed via AD and manually summed into the global derivative. C++ templating and operator overloading work well for both forward- and reverse-mode derivative computations. We found that AD derivative computations compared favorably in time to finite differencing for a scalable finite-element discretization of a convection-diffusion problem in two dimensions.