The two-level FETI method Part II: Extension to shell problems, parallel implementation and performance results Original Research Article

The two-level FETI method presented in Part I of this work is a mathematically optimal and scalable substructuring algorithm for solving iteratively large-scale systems of equations arising from the finite element discretization of static and dynamic plate bending problems. In this paper, we extend the two-level FETI method to shell problems, describe a variant approach, revisit the preconditioning problem, address the efficient implementation of the corresponding iterative solvers on massively parallel processors, highlight the computational price of mathematical optimality and discuss its consequences, and report some impressive performance results on two Paragon XP/S and IBM SP2 massively parallel processors for several realistic plate and shell problems.