Ease of Use

FMS is designed to be easy to incorporate into your application program. The following flowchart shows where FMS is interfaced to your application.

Step 1: Matrix coefficients are transferred to FMS as they are generated, by rows, columns, blocks or finite elements. FMS then assembles your data into matrix [A], which is stored in memory or on disk. Vector {B} may be transfered to FMS for storage, or FMS may be instructed to operate directly on the vector {B} which is stored in your program. Step 2: FMS solves the system of equations for the solution vector(s) {X}, which may be stored directly in your program or read from FMS. Step 3: Your application processes the solution vector(s) {X}.

For nonlinear anslysis, where the coefficients in matrix [A] depend on the solution values in {X}, the process is repeated until convergence is obtained. FMS contains special features to reduce the number of operations is step 2 when only some of the matrix coefficients are updated.