Programming support for the flexible coupling of distributed software components for scientific simulations

In this article, we investigate the flexible coupling of distributed software components that are required for an optimization process of lightweight structures built from hybrid materials. The software components include computationally intensive applications for the simulation of hybrid structures, control applications for implementing the optimization process as well as data-oriented applications for the generation, management, and visualization of simulation data. The participating software components and application programs are described to demonstrate their strongly varying functionalities as well as the diversity of data exchange methods that need to be considered for the data coupling. Furthermore, we present the design and usage of a software library with transparent data coupling mechanisms for software components that are flexibly distributed among different computing resources.