Author Type

Graduate Student

Date of Award

1997

Document Type

Thesis

Publication Status

Version of Record

Submission Date

October 2026

Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]

Case, Robert O.

Thesis/Dissertation Co-Chair

Tsai, Chi-Tay

Abstract

The development of a parallel data structure and an associated elemental decomposition algorithm for explicit finite element analysis for massively parallel SIMD computer, the DECmpp 12000 (MasPar MP-1) machine, is presented, and then extended to implementation on the MIMD computer, Cray-T3D. The new parallel data structure and elemental decomposition algorithm are discussed in detail and is used to parallelize a sequential Fortran code that deals with the application of isoparametric elements for the nonlinear dynamic analysis of shells of revolution. The parallel algorithm required the development of a new procedure, called an 'exchange', which consists of an exchange of nodal forces at each time step to replace the standard gather-assembly operations in sequential code. In addition, the data was reconfigured so that all nodal variables associated with an element are stored in a processor along with other element data. The architectural and Fortran programming language features of the MasPar MP-1 and Cray-T3D computers which are pertinent to finite element computations are also summarized, and sample code segments are provided to illustrate programming in a data parallel environment. The governing equations, the finite element discretization and a comparison between their implementation on Von Neumann and SIMD-MIMD parallel computers are discussed to demonstrate their applicability and the important differences in the new algorithm. Various large scale transient problems are solved using the parallel data structure and elemental decomposition algorithm and measured performances are presented and analyzed in detail. Results show that Cray-T3D is a very promising parallel computer for finite element computation. The 32 processors of this machine shows an overall speedup of 27-28, i.e. an efficiency of 85% or more and 128 processors shows a speedup of 70-77, i.e. an efficiency of 55% or more. The Cray-T3D results demonstrated that this machine is capable of outperforming the Cray-YMP by a factor of about 10 for finite element problems with 4K elements, therefore, the method of developing the parallel data structure and its associated elemental decomposition algorithm is recommended for implementation on other finite element code in this machine. However, the results from MasPar MP-1 show that this new algorithm for explicit finite element computations do not produce very efficient parallel code on this computer and therefore, the new data structure is not recommended for further use on this MasPar machine.

Extent

259 p.

Comments

College of Engineering and Computer Science|FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection|Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 1997.|College of Engineering and Computer Science

Identifier

FADT12500

Format

pdf

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