For the simulation and optimization of large-scale chemical processes,
the overall computing time is often dominated by the time needed to s
olve a large sparse system of linear equations. A new parallel frontal
solver that can significantly reduce the wallclock time required to s
olve these linear equation systems using parallel/vector supercomputer
s is presented. The algorithm exploits both multiprocessing and vector
processing by using a multilevel approach in which frontal eliminatio
n is used for the partial factorization of each front. Results of seve
ral large-scale process simulation and optimization problems are prese
nted.