Large-scale parallel flow analysis based on free mesh method: a virtually meshless method

In this paper, large-scale parallel computing based on a virtually meshless method called the 'free mesh method' for incompressible viscous flow with three-million D.O.Fs or one-million nodes is presented. By using the free-m esh method, a seamless system from the stage of nodal information input wit hout node-element connectivity information to the stage of the system equat ions solver is successfully developed. The system can compute the global ma ss, advection, diffusion, gradient and divergence matrices node-by-node ind ependently from only nodal information on a parallel computer. With techniq ues of node generation based on nodal density control and a kind of hash so rting method for search nodes, a lid-driven cavity problem having three-mil lion D.O.Fs can be successfully solved. In the problem, the process of cons tructing system equations from nodal information by the free-mesh method, r equires about 142 s using 64 processors of the Hitachi SR2201. (C) 1999 Els evier Science S.A. All rights reserved.