Title: On the generic parallelisation of iterative solvers for the finite element method

Authors: Markus Blatt, Peter Bastian

Addresses: Insititut fur Parallele und Verteilte Systeme (IPVS), Universitat Stuttgart, Universitatsstr 38, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany. ' Insititut fur Parallele und Verteilte Systeme (IPVS), Universitat Stuttgart, Universitatsstr 38, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany

Abstract: The numerical solution of partial differential equations frequently requires solving large and sparse linear systems. When using the Finite Element Method these systems exhibit a natural block structure that is exploited for efficiency in the |Iterative Solver Template Library| (ISTL). Based on existing sequential preconditioned iterative solvers we present an abstract parallelisation approach which clearly separates the parallelisation aspects from the data structures and solver algorithms by imposing an abstract consistency model onto the building blocks of the iterative solver components. This allows for supporting overlapping and non-overlapping domain decompositions as well as data parallel implementations of standard linear solvers.

Keywords: iterative methods; domain decomposition; C++; generic programming; parallel computing; generic parallelisation; finite element method; FEM; partial differential equations.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCSE.2008.021112

International Journal of Computational Science and Engineering, 2008 Vol.4 No.1, pp.56 - 69

Published online: 04 Nov 2008 *

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