An Object-oriented Software Environment for Collaborative Network Simulation

The Open System for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (OpenSees) is a software environment for the network-based simulation of structural and geotechnical systems. The software design of the structural and geotechnical models in OpenSees is modular and hierarchical to mirror the equations of structural mechanics. The mathematical software components for computational simulation are also modular, allowing new components to be added to the framework. The ability to perform networkbased structural simulation with OpenSees follows directly from the modular software design because the components necessary for network-based simulation can be added to the framework as another implementation of an object than can be communicated between processors over a network. Modules for network-based simulation derive their behavior from the existing components in OpenSees, which are also movable objects that can be sent over communication channels during a computational simulation. New networked-based applications in OpenSees include parallel computation, databases, and hybrid experimental methods.