NON-LINEAR STRUCTURAL RESPONSE USING ADAPTIVE DYNAMIC RELAXATION ON A MASSIVELY PARALLEL-PROCESSING SYSTEM

A parallel adaptive dynamic relaxation (ADR) algorithm has been developed for non-linear structural analysis. This algorithm has minimal memory requirements, is easily parallelizable and scalable to many processors, and is generally very reliable and efficient for highly non-linear problems. Performance evaluations on single-processor computers have shown that the ADR algorithm is reliable and highly vectorizable, and that it is competitive with direct solution methods for the highly non-linear problems considered. The present algorithm is implemented on the 512-processor Intel Touchstone DELTA system at Caltech, and it is designed to minimize the extent and frequency of interprocessor communication. The algorithm has been used to solve for the non-linear static response of two- and three-dimensional hyperelastic systems involving contact. Impressive relative speed-ups have been achieved and demonstrate the high scalability of the ADR algorithm. For the class of problems addressed, the ADR algorithm represents a very promising approach for parallel-vector processing.