| The basic concepts of object oriented programming are introduced to facilitate understanding of the terminologies used. The theory of the finite element method is reviewed keeping in mind the object oriented approach. Objects which contribute to the building of a finite element model are created. The data members and member functions which constitute the classes to which the various objects belong are considered using an existing two dimensional finite element analysis code as a reference. The advantages of this approach, namely data encapsulation, inheritance and polymorphism and the simplicity of using C++ as the programming language are demonstrated by developing an object oriented two dimensional finite element analysis code in C++. |
