IPSAP : A High-performance Parallel Finite Element Code for Large-scale Structural Analysis Based on Domain-wise Multifrontal Technique

Most of researches for large-scale parallel structural analysis have focused on iterative solution methods since direct solution methods generally have many difficulties and disadvantages for large-scale problems. However, due to the numerical robustness of direct methods that guarantees the solution to be obtained within estimated time, direct methods are much more desirable for general application of large-scale structural analysis, if the difficulties and disadvantages can be overcome. In this research, we propose the domain-wise multifrontal solver as an efficient direct solver that can overcome most of these difficulties and disadvantages. By using our own structural analysis code IPSAP which uses the proposed solver, we can solve the largest problem ever solved by direct solvers and can sustain 191 Gflop/s with 256 CPUs on our self-made cluster system, Pegasus. By implementing the block Lanczos algorithm using our solver, IPSAP can solve eigen problems with 7 millions of DOFs within one hour.