An Evaluation of Architectural Platforms for Parallel Navier-Stokes Computations.

Abstract

We study the computational, communication, and scalability characteristics of a Computational Fluid Dynamics application, which solves the time accurate flow field of a jet using the compressible Navier-Stokes equations, on a variety of parallel architecture platforms. The platforms chosen for this study are a cluster of workstations (the LACE experimental testbed at NASA Lewis), a shared memory multiprocessor (the Cray YMP), and distributed memory multiprocessors with different topologies - the IBM SP and the Cray T3D. We investigate the impact of various networks connecting the cluster of workstations on the performance of the application and the overheads induced by popular message passing libraries used for parallelization. The work also highlights the importance of matching the memory bandwidth to the processor speed for good single processor performance. By studying the performance of an application on a variety of architectures, we are able to point out the strengths and weaknesses of each of the example computing platforms.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 01, 1996
Accession Number
ADA308176

Entities

People

  • D. N. Jayasimha
  • M. E. Hayder
  • S. K. Pillay

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Bandwidth
  • Boundaries
  • Computational Fluid Dynamics
  • Computations
  • Computer Programming
  • Computers
  • Equations
  • Euler Equations
  • Flow Fields
  • Fluid Dynamics
  • Multiprocessors
  • Navier Stokes Equations
  • Parallel Processors
  • Platforms
  • Test And Evaluation
  • Topology
  • Two Dimensional

Fields of Study

  • Computer science

Readers

  • Finite Element Method (FEM) for solving Partial Differential Equations (PDEs)
  • Parallel and Distributed Computing.