Author(s)

G.K. Egan

Abstract

Parallelisation of the SDEM distinct element stress analysis code G.K. Egan Laboratory for Concurrent Computing Systems, Swinburne University of Technology, John Street, ABSTRACT The SDEM code models systems of interacting blocks of rock using the distinct element (DE) method. The DE method represents these systems as discontinuums with each block acting under Newton's Laws of Motion. The data structures associated with the DE method are comprised largely of linked lists which make the task of obtaining performance gains through vectorisation difficult. The systems, however, are comprised of thousands of blocks and there is the potential of performing block interaction calculations in parallel. This paper details the analysis and refinement steps used in implementing a parallel version of the SDEM. Experience has shown that the gains due to automatic annotation of the original FORTRAN source were limited but that with a modest amount of effort critical data dependencies may

Keywords