Large-Scale Parallel Computation Methodologies for Highly Nonlinear Concrete and Soil Applications

Abstract

Detailed analyses of concrete and buried concrete structures undergoing complex inelastic responses to loads, such as those resulting from explosive detonations, are challenging mechanics problems and can require significant computational resources. The writers have been involved in the development of various constitutive models that are successful in modeling blast responses, but can also be computationally intensive—thus excluding their use for many large-scale applications. Recent efforts at the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center have focused on developing procedures for performing these types of analyses in a production setting utilizing high performance computing. These models have been implemented into a parallel finite-element code, ParaAble, developed by the writers, and a new feature was added to the METIS partitioning software to easily apply weighting for improved load balancing in multiple material problems. Examples are shown that efficiently utilize from dozens to up to thousands of processors, both single and dual core, on Linux clusters and other parallel systems to enable such analyses to be performed in a reasonable amount of time.