3-D Finite Element Analysis Over the Internet Using JAVA and VRML

3-D Finite Element Analysis Over the Internet Using JAVA and VRML


ABSTRACT

Over the past few years the Internet has gained a prominent role in many fields of
human endeavor such as commerce, entertainment, news, information, communications,
education etc. Many industries have realized the enormous potential of the Internet and
are coming up with newer and better ways of utilizing the Internet for improving their
operations. The Internet can be used as an information backbone for implementing the
concepts of Concurrent Engineering (CE) and Design for Manufacturing (DFM). These
concepts are being stressed in many industries since they can reduce the errors, costs and
time in the design of new products. The ubiquitous and platform independent nature of
the Internet allows geographically dispersed users to view the same data at the same time.
Thus the different departments in a company can coordinate their activities using the
Internet. Also many universities and institutions of higher learning have started adopting
the Internet as a new tool for dissemination of education and information. The
inexpensive access, user-friendly nature, round the clock availability and the ability to
quickly update the outdated information are particularly appealing to the educational
institutions.

This thesis is concerned with creating a virtual design and analysis environment
over the Internet using VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) and Java. The
above-mentioned Internet technologies are used to enhance design education for
engineering students in all courses. Courses in engineering design are an important part

of the curriculum for students majoring in mechanical, aerospace and civil engineering.
In design courses students are taught to analyze problems and apply various equations for
computing stresses, strains and displacements. Traditionally these problems are solved by
the student using paper and pencil approach. For more complicated problems with no
closed form solutions finite element techniques are used. Generally the finite element
methods require the use of expensive software codes, which are also difficult to learn.
The students enrolled in the design courses will benefit if they are able to visualize their
designs and the effect of the various parameters on their designs. Although CAD and
analysis programs available in the market today possess good design and visualization
capabilities, they generally require heavy investment of time and money. Also the CAD
and CAE systems currently available do not have built-in Internet capabilities. The
VRML and Java based design and analysis environment developed in this research is a
real time design environment, which allows the creation of 3D models that are viewable
over the Internet using a web browser that has a VRML viewer plug-in. Since the design
environment is in real time, the students can experiment with their design models by
changing the values of the design parameters and receive the feedback immediately as the
model updates quickly on their computer screen. Hence the students can perform
collaborative design over the Internet using the Java and VRML based application. The
VRML and Java based design and analysis environment is also inexpensive compared to
commercial CAD systems and requires only a common text editor along with a Java
complier for development. In order to perform computations on the local machine of the

user rather than the server, this research uses the Java language. The advantage of using
this approach is that the speed of computation is significantly higher than a client-server
based computation using a programming language such as PERL. Since this research
uses an Internet based design and analysis approach, many users can simultaneously log
on to the design environment and this may lead to a bottleneck due to the increased
Internet traffic. However since the Java and VRML application runs on the local machine
of the user, the design and analysis environment is quicker vis-à-vis a client-server based
program. The VRML and Java based design and analysis environment is thus used to
demonstrate the potential for design education over the Internet.

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