A FINITE ELEMENT SYSTEM FOR THE CYBER 205 VECTOR PROCESSOR (NONLINEAR, ANALYSIS, STATIC)

ROBERT DANIEL VANLUCHENE, Purdue University

Abstract

Finite element system developers bear considerable responsibility. An understanding of vector processor hardware characteristics and operational behavior is required before an attempt for superior finite element analysis performance should be made. This dissertation summarizes some of the special considerations required for finite element system development on the CDC CYBER 205 vector processor. An efficient database and its corresponding management system is presented. Discussions involving vectorization of nodal renumbering strategies, element level calculations, and equation solution methods are included. Nonlinear analysis topics including geometric formulation type, methods of iterative solution, and techniques for implementation of material models are discussed in the context of the vector processor. The techniques presented in this dissertation are implemented in a static finite element system. Performance of the thesis system is compared with nonvectorized finite element systems for a variety of problem types. The thesis system requires one-fifth to one-tenth of the central processing unit time required by the nonvectorized systems. Input-output resources consumed by the nonvectorized system are four to eighty times the quantity of resources consumed by the thesis system. It is concluded that problem size is limited on the Purdue University CYBER installation by memory considerations rather than central processing unit speed. Recommendations are made which would further improve the performance of the thesis system.

Degree

Ph.D.

Subject Area

Civil engineering

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