Parallel analysis of rotationally periodic structures

Abstract

A parallel finite element solution algorithm for analysing large rotationally periodic structures on MIMD parallel computer systems is described. For a rotationally periodic structure, the global stiffness matrix under the corresponding symmetric coordinate system is periodic, i.e. possesses isomorphic properties, so that the global equation system can be transformed into a number of smaller equation systems which are fully decoupled. These decoupled equation systems then can be solved simultaneously on a multiprocessor parallel computer. The algorithm also generates the decoupled equation systems in parallel, without explicitly assembling the global stiffness matrix of the structure. A prototype implementation of the algorithm on an array of transputers is presented, and the efficiency of the program is also studied in this paper. Finally, a numerical example is given to demonstrate the speedup of the program.