Welcome to Webfem project

Webfem is a Web application which allows the simulation of physical problems solved with the finite element method (FEM). Thanks to its native Web architecture, it is suited to remote access and sharing on remote computers and to grid computing. The "OO" architecture allows the users to easily add new elements, shape functions, partial differential equations

It is designed to be accessed through web browsers, as a web application. Further, thanks to the integration of Web Services SOAP libraries it is possible to run the simulation on a single computer or distributed on a cluster of computers on the WEB net. This feature configures webfem as a grid computing program. In its current version it allows the simulation of elastic and thermal static 1D and 2D problems. Basic meshing algorithms are implemented for regular geometries. It is possible to import external meshes or complete FEM models converted to a specific XML format. The setting of the boundary conditions and the visualization of the simulation results are based on an SVG based GUI. Webfem has been designed and implemented with strong attention to the object oriented paradigm. The basic modules of the simulators, e.g. partial differential equations (PDEs), elements, shape functions, are organized as an hierarchy of independent JAVA classes. This allows people who would like to improve the project to easily add new functionalities (e.g. new PDEs, elements,…) by simply adding new classes, based on well defined templates

Thanks to the native Web architecture webfem is particularly suited to:

• Learning and Distance learning of the finite element method
• Learning and Distance learning of building sciences topics
• Learning purposes, thanks to the possibility to implement new PDEs for new physical problems to be solved – the CORE of the simulator is given, specific physical problems solutions can be easily implemented and added to the CORE
• Tool for virtual distributed laboratories interested in sharing engineering simulations and simulation tools on the Web
• Construct a grid computing in order to distribuite very complex problem

• completely JAVA based solution, running on the server side (no need of client-side modules)
• native Web Application
• it is possible to choose among three configurations for executing the assembly of the “K”-matrix (the matrix representing the problem configuration), which is one of the most time consuming algorithms of FEM:
  • standalone
  • distribution on a cluster of computer; the whole simulation package is installed on one computer, referred to as the server. The other computers of the cluster have just the few classes that implement the distributed algorithm
  • community of independent webfem servers whose CPUs could be shared configuring the cluster in an appropriate way The configuration is selected by the user through a menu of the program
• not limited to a certain type of physical/engineering problems, but open to every type of PDE appropriately discretized according to FEM rules