Performance and Scalability of Finite Element Analysis for Parallel Computation

E. Barragy
Department of Engineering Mechanics
University of Texas
Austin, TX 78712
G. F. Carey
Department of Engineering Mechanics
University of Texas
Austin, TX 78712
R. A. van de Geijn
Department of Computer Sciences
University of Texas
Austin, TX 78712

Abstract

A two-dimensional (h,p) finite element scheme for distributed parallel computation is developed. The approach is based on an element-by-element domain decomposition and is implemented on the nCUBE2 system. Example problems are used to demonstrate performance of the algorithm for a range of (h,p) and to validate the run-time model. The run-time model is then used to examine the scaling properties of conjugate gradients and the (h,p) FEM over a range of p.

E. Barragy, G. F. Carey, and R. van de Geijn, ``Performance and Scalability of Finite Element Analysis for Parallel Computation,'' Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing , 21, pp. 202-212 (1994).