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Generic programming techniques for parallelizing and extending procedural finite element programs

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Abstract

We outline an approach for extending procedural finite-element software components using generic programming. A layer of generic software components consisting of C++ containers and algorithms is used for parallelization of the finite-element solver and for solver coupling in multi-physics applications. The advantages of generic programming in connection with finite-element codes are discussed and compared with those of object-oriented programming. The use of the proposed generic programming techniques is demonstrated in a tutorial fashion through basic illustrative examples as well as code excerpts from a large-scale finite-element program for serial and parallel computing platforms.

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Notes

  1. Public inheritance with virtual member functions in C++.

  2. If shared libraries are used, the framework user does not even need to create a new executable.

  3. One may, however, pre-instantiate a templated function or class with specific template arguments and compile such instantiations into a library. This can be helpful in cases where particular instantiations are commonly used.

  4. Note that in OOP, a pointer to a base class may contain the address of an object of a derived class. Consequently, the actual type of the object referred to by the pointer can be known only at run time.

  5. The keyword typename is used to clarify that the entity Compare qualified by the type parameter PT is itself a type.

  6. In order to avoid the successive memory reallocations during the collection process with the STL vector container, one can use the reserve method.

  7. The axis-aligned bounding box of a subdomain is the smallest rectangular box with sides parallel to the x, y, and z axes that encloses the subdomain.

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Acknowledgments

The support of DoE through Caltech’s ASCI Center is gratefully acknowledged (DOE W-7405-ENG-48, B523297).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB2 1PZ, UK

    Fehmi Cirak

  2. Center for Advanced Computing Research, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, 91125, USA

    Julian C. Cummings

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  1. Fehmi Cirak
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Correspondence to Fehmi Cirak.

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Cirak, F., Cummings, J.C. Generic programming techniques for parallelizing and extending procedural finite element programs. Engineering with Computers 24, 1–16 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00366-007-0058-x

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