A versatile load balancing framework for parallel applications based on domain decomposition

This paper presents a general load balancing framework and two specific loa d balancing algorithms that can be used for a wide range of parallel progra ms based on domain decomposition. Both the framework and the algorithms are versatile in the sense that they work on dedicated and non-dedicated paral lel computers, and on homogeneous and heterogeneous parallel computers. The effectiveness of the load balancing framework is demonstrated for a parall el finite element simulation on a Gray T3E and a non-dedicated heterogeneou s workstation cluster. Copyright (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.