Finite element modelling of soil-structure systems in workstation clusters

Modem large-scaled buildings are erected on rather complex foundations. Comprehensive modelling and discretization of such soil-structure systems require a three-dimensional design to capture the changes of the geotechnical components during the construction process. The generation and administration of the complex time-dependent geotechnical and numerical models need holistic computational methods for the management of construction stages, the visualization, and the proof of the engineering system. In this paper, a system is presented, that allows the modelling and the management of the individual construction stages based on an object-oriented dynamic model comprising the soil-structure, the geotechnical construction elements and the construction processes. An automatic mesh generator enables the discretization of three-dimensional hexahedron meshes for the finite element representation with parallel computing techniques.