A spare shared-memory multifrontal solver in SCAD software

A block-based sparse direct finite element solver for commonly used multi-core and shared-memory multiprocessor computer has been developed. It is intended to solve linear equation sets with sparse symmetrical matrices which appear in problems of structural and solid mechanics. A step-by-step assembling procedure together with simultaneous elimination of fully assembled equations distinguishes this method from the well-known multifrontal solver, so this approach can be interpreted as a generalization of the conventional frontal solver fro an arbitrary reordering. This solver is implemented in the commercial finite element software SCAD (www.scadsoft.com), and its usage by numerous users has confirmed its efficiency and reliability.