An Unstructured Semantic Mesh Definition Suitable for Finite Element Method

Numerical methods, such as finite element method (FEM), are widely used for computations on meshes in variety of simulation related software applications. As these methods become more popular in engineering, also information management requirements for these models are growing. Neutral data formats and standards are needed in order to achieve vendor independence and transformation between different tools. Semantic data modelling is one modern and potential technique that can be used for this purpose. In this paper, we propose our Semantic mesh data structure that can be used in development of semantic software applications, which use meshes. The proposed structure is universal and can be used for representing meshes used in wide number of popular FEM applications such as e.g. Abaqus FEA, I-DEAS or MSC Adams. Our Semantic mesh proposal can be also used for mesh based simulations with other methods than FEM, such as e.g. finite volume method used in computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Also it can be used outside focus of numerical simulations, e.g. for projects related to scientific data visualization and computer graphics. We provide a description of our Semantic mesh, together with an example of a very simple 2D mesh, illustrating our proposal. The implementation is using the semantic database in Simantics software platform.