A Microcomputer-aided Three-dimensional Finite Element Method. An Efficient Double-Tandem-Type Substructuring Method Using a Parallel Calculation Process.

Abstract

This paper presents a new efficient calculation method comprising the following two methods:( 1 ) the double-tandem-type substructuring method as an efficient calculation method and ( 2 ) the parallel calculation process for composition of small-sized stiffness submatrices in ( 1 ), in numerical solution of a microcomputer/personal computer-aided finite element method (FEM). The parallel calculation is carried out on several microprocessors, so-called transputer in order to decrease the time required for composition of the stiffness submatrices. This method requires the utilization of disk memory storage units such as floppy and hard disks in order to store the data of the stiffness submatrices and/or their decomposed ones. Especially, the stiffness submatrices of the storage unit are divided from the structure stiffness matrix within the limit of the machine memory capacity. The data of the LDU submatrices are placed in the data set of the stiffness submatrices in order to save storage space in the unit. The FEM using the method is applied to the analysis of a three-dimensional elastic block with semicylindrical notches under tension. Therefore, the FEM is applicable for analysis of structures of a large-size matrix requiring memory capacity greater than that of the machine itself.