Development of the Finite Element Modeling Markup Language

Abstract

The finite element modeling Markup Language (femML) effort is addressing the problems of data interpretation and exchange for intra- and inter- application interoperability in the Finite Element Modeling domain. This is achieved through the development of an extensible markup language (XML) variant for finite element model data that will permit the storage, transmission, and processing of finite element modeling data distributed via the World Wide Web and related infrastructure technologies. The focus of this work was to utilize the XML’s power of semantic encapsulation along with the existing and continuously improving associated technology to develop a dialect for exchanging FEM data across various codes with heterogeneous input format syntactic specifications. The main aspects of a finite element definition have been used as archetypes for defining the XML element taxonomy definitions. Namely, the geometry, the material, and the loading aspects of a structural component specification are used to define the first level elements of the associated Document Type Definition (DTD). The element list has been amended with a behavior element specification that represents the solution data to be exchanged or visualized. Various tools have been developed to demonstrate associated concepts along with the ANSYS set of tools.