The development of a Java']Java engineering application for higher-order asymptotic analysis of crack-tip fields

In this paper an experience in development of an engineering application using Java is presented. Higher-order asymptotic analysis of elastic-plastic crack-tip fields includes a computationally intensive part related to obtaining the three-term asymptotic expansion. It also requires the input of a large amount of data for fitting the asymptotic field to numerically determined stresses in the near crack-tip region. The developed Java applet implements a graphical user interface using Abstract Windowing Toolkit components. The applet can be downloaded through the Internet and can be run on different computer platforms inside a Java enabled Web browser. Using simple examples, we explain how to overcome some drawbacks of Java API classes, which can arise during the development of engineering applications. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.