Solution of Ultra-Large Structural Mechanics Problems during CAP-I 2008 on the DaVinci System

The finite element (FE)-code STRIPE was used during Capability Applications Project I (CAP-I) 2008 to efficiently and reliably solve ultra-large structures and materials problems having the order of a billion degrees of freedom on the IBM Power P6-system DaVinci. Problems of this size cannot be solved on the NAVY/Babbage system due to memory requirements or on the AFRL/Hawk system due to long execution wall-time requirements. STRIPE performance on the DaVinci and Babbage systems was compared and a factor of up to eight in speedup in wall-time was observed solving the largest problems solvable on Babbage. This significant increase in computational performance is due to a STRIPE code rewrite, a new finite element modeling (FEM)-approach, and the superior CPU and input/output (I/O) performance of the DaVinci system relative to Babbage. This paper describes the various techniques adopted during CAP-I on DaVinci to achieve high system scalability when solving, in short time, the world´s largest strength of materials problem related to aircraft maintenance and design. Support from major software vendors IBM, DoD Supercomputing Resource Center´s (DSRC´s) support specialists, as well as I/O specialists at ParaTools (as a part of the PET-program) have contributed to the successful CAP-I activities described here.