Solving PDEs on loosely-coupled parallel processors (Q579881)

This paper analyzes three different classes of algorithms, i.e. explicit methods for time dependent PDEs; direct methods by banded Gaussian elimination; iterative methods by domain decomposition, both for solving linear systems issued from approximations of PDEs, and it discusses their implications to the design of a certain class of parallel computer, the loosely-coupled parallel computer. In this way such a computer is characterised by three parameters: the floating-point speed, the startup time for an IO operation and the transfer rate, all in seconds per operation. Some experiments are given from which the authors make recommendations about the design of the next generation of these parallel computers.