Large-scale structural analysis using domain decomposition method on distributed parallel computing environment

Distributed parallel computing, which uses general purpose workstations connected by a network as a large parallel computing resource, is one of the most promising trends in parallel computing. With this technique, existing computing resources can be utilized effectively and the supercomputing power can be achieved through the networked workstations without additional expenditures to buy the expensive supercomputers. The parallel finite element method using domain decomposition has been adapted to the distributed parallel environment of networked workstations. Using the developed code, several model problems have been solved and the parallel performances have been tested on the network of eight IBM RS/6000 230 workstations. Finally, a very large size structural analysis problem with over 368,000 DOFs has been solved using 36 IBM RS/6000 380 workstations connected by a network.