SYSTEM ARCHITECTURES FOR SUPPORT OF NONLINEAR FINITE-ELEMENT ANALYSIS

A number of new systems technologies have been released over the last year which significantly affects the possibilities for designing finite element analysis facilities. Examples include workstations which have nearly the power of Cray 1 computers, virtual file systems which provide the equivalent of gigabytes of disc storage, high performance color hard copy capability, and advances in the software interoperability layers, such as X-Windows, postscript, and NFS, which provide the opportunity for increased integration of these systems opportunities. The result is the opportunity to design finite element facilities which are dramatically different than facilities of even five years ago, and which offer the potential of significant improvement in analyst productivity. These technologies will be discussed, and the results of the internal testing of these technologies at Texas Instruments will be described. A reference facility with migration opportunities to the new technology will be detailed. Finally, thoughts on future systems technologies, and their impact on finite element facilities, will be discussed.