A multi-level frontal algorithm for finite element analysis and its implementation on parallel computation

This paper presents a multi-level frontal algorithm and its implementation and applications on parallel computation A multi-frontal program is given w hich may be used for unsymmetric finite element matrix equations. The paral lel program is developed on a cluster of workstations. The PVM (parallel vi rtual machine) system is used to handle communications among networked work stations. The method has advantages such as numbering of the finite element mesh in an arbitrary manner, simple Programming organisation, smaller core requirements and computation times. An implementation of this parallel met hod on workstations is discussed, the speedup and efficiency of this method being demonstrated and compared with general domain decomposition method b ased on band matrix methods by numerical examples.