Abstract
Reconfiguration of a discrete element code for parallel operation provided the opportunity to compare processing speeds on various hardware platforms. The program employed in this comparison, NURBM3DP, is a three dimensional, distinct element code employed to calculate dynamic response of a cavern in a jointed rock mass. On a 16 processor IBM SP2, it is capable of calculating dynamic response with 1000's of explicit time steps of jointed rock masses with up to 2,000,000 blocks. Comparison of single instruction multiple data stream (SIMD) and multiple-instruction multiple-data stream (MIMD) operation showed MIMD processing to provide the best overall parallelization. The full report of the comparisons of operation on different hardware with different data streaming configurations can be found at the research section of the Northwestern University Computational Mechanics site: http://www.tam.nwu.edu/compmech.html. In addition, a color movie of dynamic response of a million block model of a cavern responding to dynamic excitation can be seen at: http://geotech.civen.okstate.edu/ejge/ppr9801/index.htm.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 281-285 |
| Number of pages | 5 |
| Journal | Computers and Geotechnics |
| Volume | 25 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Dec 7 1999 |
Funding
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the National Science Foundation under Grant MSS 92-16274 and the encouragement of Dr. Priscilla Nelson of the Geo-mechanics-technical & -environmental Systems G 3 S Program. We are grateful to Professor Prithviraj Banerjee for providing access to the Northwestern University Center for Parallel and Distributed Computing facilities also supported by the National Science Foundation Grant CDA-9703228.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Geotechnical Engineering and Engineering Geology
- Computer Science Applications