A special purpose finite element architecture

Abstract

In this paper we will propose a special purpose parallel architecture for solving partial differential equations using the Finite Element method. We will propose a Multiple Instruction-stream, Multiple Data-stream (MIMD) architecture with a mesh interconnection network. Since there exists a plethora of Finite Element code, we will not provide a specific variation. We will, however, explicitly diagram how current sequential code should be modified to run efficiently on our proposed machine. In this paper, we concentrate on two-dimensional triangular shaped elements. However, any figure with no more than six sides including two-1 dimensional hexagonal and quadrilateral elements as well as three-dimensional triangular or quadrilateral elements are supported. We focus on two areas of the Finite Element method that can be sped up greatty using our machine. These two areas are mesh generation and the solution phase. We employ a multifront approach as our solution technique.