Nonlinear explicit transient finite element analysis on the Intel Delta

Conference · Fri Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1993

OSTI ID:6580993

Plaskacz, E J ^[1]; Ramirez, M R; Gupta, S ^[2]

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1. Argonne National Lab., IL (United States)
2. Johns Hopkins Univ., Baltimore, MD (United States). Dept. of Civil Engineering

Many large scale finite element problems are intractable on current generation production supercomputers. High-performance computer architectures offer effective avenues to bridge the gap between computational needs and the power of computational hardware. The biggest challenge lies in the substitution of the key algorithms in an application program with redesigned algorithms which exploit the new architectures and use better or more appropriate numerical techniques. A methodology for implementing nonlinear finite element analysis on a homogeneous distributed processing network is discussed. The method can also be extended to heterogeneous networks comprised of different machine architectures provided that they have a mutual communication interface. This unique feature has greatly facilitated the port of the code to the 8-node Intel Touchstone Gamma and then the 512-node Intel Touchstone Delta. The domain is decomposed serially in a preprocessor. Separate input files are written for each subdomain. These files are read in by local copies of the program executable operating in parallel. Communication between processors is addressed utilizing asynchronous and synchronous message passing. The basic kernel of message passing is the internal force exchange which is analogous to the computed interactions between sections of physical bodies in static stress analysis. Benchmarks for the Intel Delta are presented. Performance exceeding 1 gigaflop was attained. Results for two large-scale finite element meshes are presented.

• Research Organization: Argonne National Lab., IL (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE; USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: W-31109-ENG-38
• OSTI ID: 6580993
• Report Number(s): ANL/CTD/CP-78758; CONF-930286-1; ON: DE93009561
• Resource Relation: Conference: 2. symposium on parallel computational methods for large-scale structural analysis and design, Norfolk, VA (United States), 24-25 Feb 1993
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS//MATHEMATICS, COMPUTING, AND INFORMATION SCIENCE
FINITE ELEMENT METHOD
ALGORITHMS
DISTRIBUTED DATA PROCESSING
MESH GENERATION
NONLINEAR PROBLEMS
PARALLEL PROCESSING
PERFORMANCE
SUPERCOMPUTERS
CALCULATION METHODS
COMPUTERS
DATA PROCESSING
DIGITAL COMPUTERS
MATHEMATICAL LOGIC
NUMERICAL SOLUTION
PROCESSING
PROGRAMMING
990200* - Mathematics & Computers