Domain decomposition procedures for finite element analysis on transputer based parallel computers

A solution approach based on parallel processing concepts is presented for quasistatic finite element problems. The parallel implementation owes its distributed data structure to a substructuring approach and utilizes an automatic domain decomposer to divide an arbitrary finite element mesh into a specified number of subregions. Condensation of individual substructures is then accomplished using a modified Cholesky decomposition algorithm. The analysis module exploits the concurrent architecture of transputer systems and the code is implemented using the OCCAM language. The results obtained are very encouraging when compared with those of a parallel Cholesky algorithm applied to a single domain.