| An object-oriented software framework for computational mechanics has been designed and developed using the state of the art in software engineering. The framework can be used to develop both general purpose computational mechanics applications and special purpose applications for solving task specific computational mechanics problems.;Ideas from recent advances in software architecture have been used to design the architecture of framework. Its architecture allows the framework to be extended and reused at many levels.;An important feature of the framework is a geometry sub-system which has been specifically designed for computational mechanics. The other domain-specific features provided by the framework are an interpreted computational mechanics language (CML), a structure for management of analysis projects, a comprehensive data model, model development, model query, and analysis management. The domain-independent features provided by the framework are a drawing sub-system for data visualization, a database server, a simple GUI, and an online help server. A set of tools for development of applications using the framework is also provided.;In addition to creating a framework that addresses higher level issues, innovative work has been done in the following areas during this research: model definition and development, model query, run time type identification in the C++ programming language, and multi-developer code development tools. Comparisons with recently published work are provided.;The framework has been designed to address the following major deficiencies in existing computational mechanics software packages: (1) extensibility, (2) support for closing the design-analysis-design loop, (3) support for evolutionary problems, (4) support for team-based design, and (5) inter-operability of analysis packages. The significance of these deficiencies and the reasons for their existence are discussed.;The implemented features of the framework demonstrate the feasibility and usefulness of the framework for developing applications that can: (1) extend or modify important parts of the framework to suit their own needs, (2) use CML for rapid prototyping and extending the framework, (3) significantly ease the task of conducting parametric studies, (4) significantly ease the task of modeling evolutionary problems, (5) be easily interfaced with existing analysis programs, and (6) be used to carry out basic research. Examples that demonstrate these aspects of the framework are provided.;This research demonstrates that: (1) Use of the state of the art in software engineering allows for design and development of extensible and reusable software, and creation of high level abstractions. (2) Using a comprehensive, interpreted language to drive an application imparts tremendous power to the application in terms of flexibility, rapid prototyping, and extensibility. |
