Keywords: software design, design patterns, computer applications, information technology, software development, structural simulations.

With the substantial increase in the capabilities of modern computers, engineering software applications are becoming very sizable and complicated, in order to support different simulation models, analysis approaches and solution methods, as well as the frequently changing construction codes. The substantially increased size and complexity of current structural engineering software applications necessitates the attainment of certain maintainability, reusability and extensibility capacities. Furthermore, nowadays an engineering software must be able to facilitate various interactions with the user, between different modules of the application, or even with other applications that may run either locally or remotely. These objectives can be achieved more effectively with the proper design of engineering software in order to better manage the size and complexity of modern engineering software applications.

The object-oriented programming (OOP) paradigm can be utilized together with design patterns [1] to design and develop flexible engineering software that facilitates modifications and extensions, while maintaining sufficient computational efficiency. Design patterns (DPs) can be utilized in the development of flexible engineering software that is more easily maintained, revised, customized and extended. Although DPs have been successfully adopted in computer science and business applications, their exploitation in structural engineering software has remained minimal. This paper discusses how DPs can be utilized in the design and development of engineering software, with the aim of motivating the utilization of DPs together with the OOP paradigm to develop flexible engineering software that enables future modifications and extensions. This facilitates the continuously increasing needs of both academic research and engineering practice.

1

E. Gamma, R. Helm, R. Johnson, J. Vlissides, "Design Patterns: Elements of reusable object-oriented software", Addison Wesley, 1995.

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