Abstract

PAZ, R.R.; STORTI, M.A.; CASTRO, H.G.  and  DALCIN, L.D.. Using hybrid parallel programming techniques for the computation, assembly and solution stages in finite element codes. Lat. Am. appl. res. [online]. 2011, vol.41, n.4, pp.365-377. ISSN 0327-0793.

The so called "hybrid parallelism paradigm", that combines programming techniques for architectures with distributed and shared memories using MPI (Message Passing Interface) and OpenMP (Open Multi-Processing) standards, is currently adopted to exploit the growing use of multi-core computers, thus improving the efficiency of codes in such architectures (several multi-core nodes or clustered symmetric multi-processors (SMP) connected by a fast net to do exhaustive computations). In this paper a parallel hybrid finite element code is developed and its performance is evaluated, using MPI for communication between cluster nodes and OpenMP for parallelism within the SMP nodes. An efficient thread-safe matrix library for computing element/cell residuals (or right hand sides) and Jacobians (or matrices) in FEM-like codes is introduced and fully described. The cluster in which the code was tested is the CIMEC's 'Coyote' cluster, which consists of eight-core computing nodes connected through Gigabit Ethernet.

Keywords : Finite Elements; MPI; OpenMP; PETSc; Hybrid programming; Matrix Library.

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