A FRAMEWORK FOR INTERACTIVE COMPUTATIONAL ANALYSIS IN GEOMECHANICS

This paper presents a computational approach intended to support inter active modeling of geomechanics problems. The approach is essentially a finite element method implemented with several special features, inc luding coordinate-free, abstract geometrical modeling, a dynamic probl em formulation, encapsulated iterative solution techniques, and elemen t-by-element implementation algorithms. Object-oriented programming ha s been used to construct a system possessing these features, and the b asic architecture of the system is presented in terms of the various c lasses of objects which serve as the computational agents. The interac tive nature of the approach is illustrated in the context of a problem involving sequential loading and accretion.