Parallel computation of an unsteady compressible flow

Abstract

In the present paper, a general background is presented for developping parallel applications in the domain of Computational Fluid Dynamics. This frame of work is based upon block Jacobi preconditioned iterative methods for solving partial differential equations. It is shown how the parallelism potential of such a preconditioning can be efficiently exploited by associating it with Finite Element discretization and Object Oriented Programming. The resulting parallel applications are characterized by coarse granularity, ease of maintaining good load balance and the possibility of using the same object in both a serial or a parallel computing context. As an application of our parallel approach, the simulation of an unsteady compressible flow is discussed.