Framework for a Virtual Material Testing Laboratory

Abstract

This thesis presents a framework for a virtual laboratory for material testing, called Virlab. A virtual laboratory is an open and flexible environment that is used to simulate a set of experiments using a computer. It is beneficial and valuable for researcher and educators to simulate real problems and to conquer some challenges such as a weightless body. The virtual laboratory for material testing contributes both to the field of mechanics of materials and the field of software engineering. In the field of material mechanics Virlab can be used for material testing education and research. Students can rapidly investigate many experiments for materials and the difference between kinematics quantities and stress measures. Virlab also offers a convenient platform for researchers to investigate and test new constitutive equation and implement their new algorithms. Virlab also encourages unambiguous definitions of mechanics terms and principles. In the field of software engineering the contribution is to provide an example of the application of software engineering approaches to an important scientific computing problem. By showing the successful application of software engineer­ing methodologies for a virtual laboratory, it is hoped that software engineering ideas will spread to other scientific applications. In terms of software engineering methodologies, this thesis presents a component-based design for the virtual laboratory for material testing. In this thesis we conduct a commonality analysis for material testing, decompose the system into modules with the information hiding principle, provide an easy way to identify components from the module decompo­sition, and build the component-based system architecture. In this procedure we apply the concept of design through documentation at each stage.