An engineering data access system for a finite element program

Abstract

This paper describes a prototype implementation of an engineering data access system for a finite element analysis program. The system incorporates a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) database as the backend to store selected analysis results; and the Internet is utilized as the communication channel to access the analysis results. The objective of using an engineering database is to provide the users the needed engineering information from readily accessible sources in a ready-to-use format for further manipulation. Three key issues regarding the engineering data access system are discussed, including data modeling, data representation, and data retrieval. The engineering data access system gives great flexibility and extendibility to the data management in finite element programs and can provide additional features to enhance the applicability of finite element analysis software.

Emergence of Distributed Engineering Web Services

“…• A COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) database system can also be linked with the central server to provide the persistent storage of selected analysis results (Peng et al 2003). In this design, the database system simply serves as a web service to provide data storage and to facilitate data management.…”

Confluences among Big Data, Finite Element Analysis and High Performance Computing

“…Data were represented in three basic data types: Matrix, Vector and ID (integer). For external data representation, eXtensible Markup Language (XML) was used as the standard for representing data in a platform independent manner (Peng et al, 2003). However, ASCII/XML don't adapt well for highly voluminous and complex data such as large-scale finite element analysis data and heterogeneous product data.…”

Building finite element analysis programs in distributed services environment

“…A modular design of the framework is introduced and the details of each module are presented. Details of several 4. software modules have been described elsewhere; for example, element services module is described in [28] and the database interface module is discussed in [29]. The objective of this paper is to present a more complete picture of the framework and its application in facilitating FEA program development.…”