The Optimized Portable Algorithm and Application Libraries (OPAAL) Program was jointly supported by the DARPA Defense Sciences Office and the NSF Division of Mathematical Sciences between 1999 and 2002.  This program pioneered new concepts in platform-independent software engineering and validated them by developing portable software libraries for applications in computational mechanics.  Three university-based projects produced tools for computational modeling and simulation of mechanical processes, such as stamping and extrusion, essential in manufacture of DoD systems.  Each project entailed unique approaches to combining geometric representation (including both meshed and meshless approaches), modeling of physical effects, and automatic optimization of algorithms to facilitate a rapid and high-fidelity iterative design-evaluate-redesign cycle.