Physical concepts describe the Physical Elements, which include concepts relevant for the modeling of physical concepts like machines and physical installations. The physical elements are added as an extension to the Technology Layer for modeling the physical world.
The Figure below gives an overview of the physical elements and their relationships. These are based on the Technology Layer.
Active Structure Elements in the Physical Layer
The equipment element is the main active structure element within the physical elements. It is used to model:
- Any physical machinery
- tools
- instruments
Behavior Elements
The behavior elements from the Technology Layer (technology function, process, interaction, service, and event) are used to model the behavior of all nodes, including physical equipment, thus, there are no separate physical behavior elements are defined.
Since equipment will very often be computer-controlled or in other ways have a close relationship to IT (e.g., Internet of Things), their behavior can be described in an integral way using the existing technology behavior concepts.
Passive Structure Elements
Passive structure elements in this layer are tangible physical matter or physical elements.
Related Resources
The following resources may help you to learn more about the topic discussed in this page.
- What’s New in ArchiMate 3? – An overview of changes in ArchiMate 3.0
- Full ArchiMate Viewpoints Guide (Examples Included) – A ‘handbook’ of ArchiMate Viewpoints, which lists and explains all to 23 example ArchiMate Viewpoints in detail
- ArchiMate 3.0.1 specification
- Learn more about Visual Paradigm‘s ArchiMate support
- Visual Paradigm on YouTube