ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces some concepts and techniques related to the implementation phase, which concerns the implementation details of computer languages for a finite element analysis. Programming language is a main tool to realize algorithms for different finite element analyses. Generally speaking, there are two typical types of programming languages: imperative and functional languages. For scientific calculations like a finite element analysis, the imperative language is superior to the functional language. Among imperative languages, FORTRAN, PASCAL and C are good choices. With a functional language, programming can be accomplished by functions to given parameters without variables, assignments, and iterations. A main memory is the major place to hold a finite element method (FEM) program and to store intermediate calculation results. Before running a program, the entire code should be first loaded into the main memory. For an FEM program, it should possess the capability of solving different sizes of problems.
