J.F de Ronde, G.D. van Albeda, P.M.A. Sloot,
Univ of Amsterdam.
http://www.wins.uva.nl/research/pscs/
A simulation program which provides insight in the vibrational properties of resonant mass gravitational radiation antennas is developed from scratch. The requirements that are set necessitate the use of an explicit finite element kernel. Since the computational complexity of this kernel requires significant computing power, it is tailored for execution on parallel computer systems. After validating the physical correctness of the program, as well as the performance on distributed memory architectures, we present a number of "sample" simulation experiments to illustrate the simulation capabilities of the program. The develop ment path of the code, consisting of problem definition, mathematical modelling, choosing an appropriate solution method, parallelization, physical validation and performance val idation, is argued to be typical for the design process of large scale complex simulation codes.
Full paper (1.5 Mbyte)
For GRAIL members only.
Accepted by Computers in Physics, 1997.
J.F de Ronde, G.D. van Albeda, P.M.A. Sloot, Univ of Amsterdam.
http://www.wins.uva.nl/research/pscs/
In this paper the design and validation of a high performance simulation is discussed that is of critical value to the feasibility study of the GRAIL project, the aim of which is to build a gravitational radiation antenna. Two relatively simple simulation models of this antenna are shown to be too restrictive for our purposes, necessitating the development of a simulation program that utilizes an explicit finite element kernel. The computational complexity of this simulation kernel requires the power that is offered by high performance computing method ology. Therefore it is tailored for execution on parallel systems. Since it is devel oped from scratch, we can circumvent notorious parallel programming pitfalls that usually are present in code migration. The simulation program is validated for its physical correctness as well as its performance gain. Performance results are pre sented for two distributed memory parallel systems: A Parsytec PowerXplorer (32 PowerPC's) and Parsytec CC (40 PowerPC+'s).
Full paper (275 kByte)
Proc. HPCN Conference, Vienna, April 1997.