Distributed Structural Analysis of Large–Scale Structures on a Cluster of Personal Computers

Abstract

Recent developments in high-performance computing technologies have had a significant impact on structural analysis and design. However, most algorithms or computational strategies have been implemented on supercomputers and powerful workstations, which are beyond the reach of small organizations. In this paper, distributed computational models are presented for structural analysis of large-scale structures on a cluster of PCs based on two different levels of substructuring techniques. They are implemented on a collection of Pentium processors connected via a 10 Mbit/s Ethernet LAN. The effect of different levels and sizes of substructures on the performance of distributed implementation is investigated. The effectiveness of the algorithms is assessed by applying them to static analyses of two moment-resisting steel frames and three space truss structures. The algorithm based on multilevel substructuring allows a larger granularity of the parallel tasks, which can result in improved performance.

GA‐Based Multi‐Objective Optimization for Retrofit Design on a Multi‐Core PC Cluster

“…To solve the excessive computational time for structural optimization, many studies have proposed to improve the time efficiency by using high‐performance computational resources (Adeli and Kamal, , , ; Park and Sung, ; Umesha et al., ; Knysh and Kureichik, ; Guthier et al, ; Distefano and Puliafito, ). Nature‐based structural optimization approaches for large‐scale structures have been developed in recent years (Aldwaik and Adeli, ).…”