Supercomputers in computational ocean acoustics

In this paper, we report on some computational experience in solving ocean acoustic propagation problems in three dimensions on supercomputers. The underlying Helmholtz equation is transformed into a parabolic-type equation in the Lee-Saad-Schultz model [5], which has a natural alternating direction implicit (ADI) implementation. We give estimates of the computing power required to solve problems with realistic sound velocity profiles. We then give performance results for the CRAY X-MP and for the computational kernel on the Intel hypercube (iPSC/2). We conclude with some remarks about architectural enhancements that would be beneficial to our application.