Performance of the NASA equation solvers on computational mechanics applications (original) (raw)

A large scale, sparse, secondary storage, direct linear equation solver for structural analysis and its implementation on vector and parallel architectures

Parallel Computing, 1987

The task of converting large scale engineering programs to new computer architectures is expensive and nontrivial. An example of such a program is the structural analysis system SESAM. This paper describes the linear equation solver in the analysis part of SESAM. The algorithm is well suited for vector and parallel processing. The method uses substructure techniques at the highest level. Block sparsity is exploited at an intermediate level, while a new, sparse implementation of the extended BLAS routines forms the basis for the lowest level of the algorithm. Several problems unique to large scale general programs are described in relation to new computer technology.

Strategies for large-scale structural problems on high-performance computers

Proceedings of the 4th international conference on Supercomputing - ICS '90, 1990

Novel computational strategies are presented for the analysis of large and complex structures. The strategies are based on generating the response of the complex structure using lurge pwt~.wlx~tions from that of a simpler model, associated with a simpler structure (or a simpler m~tthematical/discrete model of the original structure). Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the strategies developed.

Salinas: A Scalable Software for High-Performance Structural and Solid Mechanics Simulations

ACM/IEEE SC 2002 Conference (SC'02), 2002

We present Salinas, a scalable implicit software application for the finite element static and dynamic analysis of complex structural real-world systems. This relatively complete engineering software with more than 100,000 lines of ¤ ¥ ¦ ¥ code and a long list of users sustains 292.5 Gflop/s on 2,940 ASCI Red processors, and 1.16 Tflop/s on 3,375 ASCI White processors. § 0-7695-1524-X/02 $17.00 (c) 2002 IEEE © in a nearly constant CPU time. Achieving this definition of scalability requires an equation solver which is (a) numerically scalable -that is, whose arithmetic complexity grows almost linearly with the problem size, and (b) amenable to a scalable parallel implementation -that is, which can exploit as large an © V X Y X is stored in a scattered column data structure across an optimal number of processors © © F , and the coarse problem (5) is solved by a parallel sparse direct method which resorts to selective

Linear static structural and vibration analysis on high-performance computers

Computing Systems in Engineering, 1993

Parallel computers offer the opportunity to significantly reduce the computation time necessary to analyze large-scale aerospace structures. This paper presents algorithms developed for and implemented on a massively-parallel computers hereafter referred to as Scalable High Performance Computers (SHPC) for the most computationally intensive tasks involved in structural analysis, namely, generation and assembly of system matrices, solution of systems of equations and calculation of the eigenvalues and eigenvectors. Results on SHPC are presented for large-scale structural problems (i.e. Models of high speed civil transport). The goal of this research is to develop new efficient technique which extend structural analysis to SHPC and make large-scale structural analyses tractable.

A new parallel sparse direct solver: Presentation and numerical experiments in large-scale structural mechanics parallel computing

International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering, 2011

The main purpose of this work is to present a new parallel direct solver : Dissection solver. It is based on LU factorization of the sparse matrix of the linear system and allows to detect automatically and handle properly the zeroenergy modes which are important when dealing with DDM. A performance evaluation and comparisons with other direct solvers (MUMPS, DSCPACK), are also given for both sequential and parallel computations. Results of numerical experiments with a two-levels parallelization of large-scale structural analysis problems are also presented : FETI is used for the global problem parallelization and Dissection for the local multithreading. In this framework, the largest problem we have solved is of an elastic solid composed of 400 subdomains running on 400 computation nodes (3200 cores) and containing about 165 millions dof. The computation of one single iteration consumes less than 20 minutes of CPU time. Several comparisons to MUMPS are given for the numerical computation of large-scale linear systems on a massively parallel cluster : performances and weaknesses of this new solver are highlighted.

Computational structural mechanics

Sadhana, 1996

Advances in computer science and technology have had a profound influence on structural engineering. A new discipline called computational structural mechanics (CSM) has emerged and a huge software industry has grown along with it. CSM has virtually developed out of a technique called the finite element method (FEM). Powerful general purpose FEM packages in the Computer-Aided-Design/Computer-Aided-Manufacturing cycle automate the use of structural analysis techniques to check designs quickly for safety, integrity, ...

A parallel-vector algorithm for rapid structural analysis on high-performance computers

Computers & Structures, 1994

A fast, accurate Choleski method for the solution of symmetric systems of linear equations is presented. This direct method is based on a variable-band storage scheme and takes advantage of column heights to reduce the number of operations in the Choleski factorization. The method employs parallel computation in the outermost DO-loop and vector computation via the 'loop unrolling' technique in the innermost DO-loop. The method avoids computations with zeros outside the column heights, and as an option, zeros inside the band. The close relationship between Choleski and Gauss elimination methods is examined. The minor changes required to convert the Choleski code to a Gauss code to solve non-positive-definite symmetric systems of equations are identified. The results for two large-scale structural analyses performed on supercomputers, demonstrate the accuracy and speed of the method.

Solution of structural analysis problems on a parallel computer

1988

In this paper the solution of linear systems of equations applied to structural analysis problems on a parallel computer system is described. Two example problems are considered; a blade-stiffened panel with a hole and a deployable space mast subjected to compression and tip loads, respectively. The numerical solution of these problems by the finite element method consists of model generation and discretization followed by the solution of a linear system of equations, K u = f. The linear systems are solved using two approachesdirect and iterative. A