A Parallel Finite Element Program on a Beowulf Cluster

Abstract

Some experiences on writing a parallel finite element code on a Beowulf cluster are shown. This cluster is made up of seven Pentium III processors connected by Fast Ethernet. The code was written in Cþþ making use of MPI as message passing library and parallel extensible toolkit for scientific computations. The code presented here is a general framework where specific applications may be written. In particular CFD applications regarding Laplace equations, Navier–Stokes and shallow water flows have been implemented. The parallel performance of this application code is assessed and several numerical results are presented.