The experimental program ¨SPC-PM Po 3D¨ is part of the ongoing research of the Chemnitz research group Scientific Parallel Computing (SPC) into finite element methods for problems over three dimensional domains. The package in its version 2.0 is documented in two manuals. The User's Manual provides an overview over the program, its capabilities, its installation, and handling. Moreover, test examples are explained. The aim of the Programmer's Manual is to provide a description of the algorithms and their realization. It is written for those who are interested in a deeper insight into the code, for example for improving and extending. In Version 2.0 the program can solve the Poisson equation and the Lam\'e system of linear elasticity with in general mixed boundary conditions of Dirichlet and Neumann type. The domain $\Omega\subset\R^3$ can be an arbitrarily bounded polyhedron. The input is a coarse mesh, a description of the data and some control parameters. The program distributes the elements of the coarse mesh to the processors, refines the elements, generates the system of equations using linear or quadratic shape functions, solves this system and offers graphical tools to display the solution. Further, the behavior of the algorithms can be monitored: arithmetic and communication time is measured, the discretization error is measured, different preconditioners can be compared. We plan to extend the program in the next future by including a multigrid solver, an error estimator and adaptive mesh refinement, as well as the treatment of coupled thermo-elastic problems. The program has been developed for MIMD computers; it has been tested on Parsytec machines (GCPowerPlus-128 with Motorola Power PC601 processors and GCel-192 on transputer basis) and on workstation clusters using PVM. The special case of only one processor is included, that means the package can be compiled for single processor machines without any change in the source files.

Using material models on the basis of the flow theory of plasticity the asymptotic behaviour of solid mechanics solutions in crack tips, interface corners etc. strongly depends on the local realized load trajectory. For incrementally proportional load paths the equations determining the asymptotic fields are very simple ones. The paper considers two-dimensional statements in the neighbourhood of an interface corner consisting of two material ranges. At a distance from the corner the finite element nodes of a regular net are established in a polar co-ordinate system together with the displacement degrees of freedom. The main idea of the presented singular and non-singular stress and deformation field calculation at interface corners characterizes an replacement of the corner neighbourhood effect to the surrounding body by introducing stiffness actions which in usual manner can be assembled together with the other element stiffness matrices to the global stiffness matrix of the body. According to this there exists an in teresting invariant stiffness independence in corner and crack neighbourhoods. The applied technique allows extensions to non-proportional local load increments simplifying the mathematical calculations for the presentation of stress and strain fields in this general case. All computations are made on modern parallel computers. Concrete examples show the advantages of the presented approach.

In this paper we compare the performance, scalability, and robustness of different parallel algorithms for the numerical solution of nonlinear boundary value problems arising in the magnetic field computation and in solid mechanics. These problems are discretized by using the finite element method with triangular meshes and piecewise linear functions. The nonlinearity is handled by a nested Newton solver, and the linear systems of algebraic equations within each Newton step are solved by means of various iterative solvers, namely multigrid methods and conjugate gradient methods with preconditioners based on domain decomposition, multigrid, or BPX techniques, respectively. The basis of the implementation of all solvers is a non-overlapping domain decomposition data structure such that they are well-suited for parallel machines with MIMD architecture.

Der Standard des Message Passing Interfaces (MPI) stellt dem Entwickler paralleler Anwendungen ein mächtiges Werkzeug zur Verfügung, seine Softwa- re effizient und weitgehend unabhängig von Details des parallelen Systems zu entwerfen. Im Rahmen einer Projektarbeit erfolgte die Umstellung der Kommunikationsbibliothek eines bestehenden FEM-Programmes auf den MPI-Mechanismus. Die Ergebnisse werden in der hier gegebenen Beschreibung der Cubecom-Implementierung zusammengefasst. In einem zweiten Teil dieser Arbeit wird untersucht, auf welchem Wege mit der in MPI verfügbaren Funktionalität auch die Koppelrandkommunikation mit einem einheitlichen und effizienten Verfahren durchgeführt werden kann. Sowohl fuer die Basisimplementierung als auch die MPI-basierte Koppelrandkommunikation wird die Effizienz untersucht und ein Ausblick auf weitere Anwendungsmoeglichkeiten gegeben.

We study the dynamical behavior of disordered many-particle systems with long-range Coulomb interactions by means of damage-spreading simulations. In this type of Monte-Carlo simulations one investigates the time evolution of the damage, i.e. the difference of the o ccupation numbers of two systems, subjected to the same thermal noise. We analyze the dependence of the damage on temperature and disorder strength. For zero disorder the spreading transition coincides with the equilibrium phase transition, whereas for finite disorder, we find an evidence for a dynamical phase transition well below the transition temperature of the pure system.

The paper presents a method for generating curved surfaces of 3D finite element meshes by mesh refinement starting with a very coarse grid. This is useful for parallel implementations where the finest meshes should be computed and not read from large files. The paper deals with simple geometries as sphere, cylinder, cone. But the method may be extended to more complicated geometries. (with 45 figures)

For the basic algebraic vector operations several variants of a local implementation on distributed memory parallel computers are presented and discussed systematically. In particular necessary and sufficient conditions are shown for the local realizability of the multiplication matrix by vector.

In order to prepare modern finite element analysis a program for the efficient parallel generation of tetrahedral meshes in a wide class of three dimensional domains having a generalized cylindric shape is presented. The applied mesh generation strategy is based on the decomposition of some 2D-reference domain into single con- nected subdomains by means of its triangulations the tetrahedral layers are built up in parallel. Adaptive grid controlling as well as nodal renumbering algorithms are involved. In the paper several examples are incorporated to demonstrate both program's capabilities and the handling with.

A parallel realisation of the Conjugate Gradient Method with Schur-Complement preconditioning, based on a domain decomposition approach, is described in detail. Special kinds of solvers for the resulting interiour and coupling systems are presented. A large range of numerical results is used to demonstrate the properties and behaviour of this solvers in practical situations.

Adaptive finite element methods for the solution of partial differential equations require effective methods of mesh refinement and coarsening, fast multilevel solvers for the systems of FE equations need a hierarchical structure of the grid. In the paper a technology is presented for the application of irregular hierarchical triangular meshes arising from refinement by only dividing elements into four congruent triangles. The paper describes the necessary data structures and data structure management, the principles and algorithms of refining and coarsening the mesh, and also a specific assembly technique for the FE equations system. Aspects of the parallel implementation on MIMD computers with a message passing communication are included.