Towards an Integrated Grid- and Cloud-Based Structural Analysis Platform

The Building Information Modeling (BIM) approach has revolutionized the way buildings are designed and constructed. The BIM design method - combined with web services, grid and cloud computing power - opens the door for construction engineers to improve the building design through enabling them to run advanced structural analyses for design alternatives quickly with low cost. However, the high hard- and software cost for complex computations like parametric studies are usually reserved for big companies or research facilities. This paper introduces an ongoing research with the project SE-Lab (http:/www.selba.eu) to develop a web-based Structural Engineering platform which allows small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to bundle their already available computing resources for complex simulations. Furthermore it provides data management functions, supports the creation of model variations and offers a collaboration layer to experts of different disciplines.