On the adequacy of message-passing parallel supercomputers for solving neutron transport problems

Conference · Mon Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1990

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1109/SUPERC.1990.130088· OSTI ID:6858482

Azmy, Y Y

A coarse-grained, static-scheduling parallelization of the standard iterative scheme used for solving the discrete-ordinates approximation of the neutron transport equation is described. The parallel algorithm is based on a decomposition of the angular domain along the discrete ordinates, thus naturally producing a set of completely uncoupled systems of equations in each iteration. Implementation of the parallel code on Intcl's iPSC/2 hypercube, and solutions to test problems are presented as evidence of the high speedup and efficiency of the parallel code. The performance of the parallel code on the iPSC/2 is analyzed, and a model for the CPU time as a function of the problem size (order of angular quadrature) and the number of participating processors is developed and validated against measured CPU times. The performance model is used to speculate on the potential of massively parallel computers for significantly speeding up real-life transport calculations at acceptable efficiencies. We conclude that parallel computers with a few hundred processors are capable of producing large speedups at very high efficiencies in very large three-dimensional problems. 10 refs., 8 figs.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (USA)
• Sponsoring Organization: DOE/ER
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-84OR21400
• OSTI ID: 6858482
• Report Number(s): CONF-901121-6; ON: DE90016041
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

654003* -- Radiation & Shielding Physics-- Neutron Interactions with Matter
73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS
99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
990200 -- Mathematics & Computers
ALGORITHMS
COMPUTERS
HYPERCUBE COMPUTERS
ITERATIVE METHODS
MATHEMATICAL LOGIC
NEUTRAL-PARTICLE TRANSPORT
NEUTRON TRANSPORT
NUMERICAL SOLUTION
PARALLEL PROCESSING
PERFORMANCE
PROGRAMMING
RADIATION TRANSPORT