Date of Award

Summer 1991

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Civil & Environmental Engineering

Program/Concentration

Civil Engineering

Committee Director

Duc T. Nguyen

Committee Member

Chuh Mei

Committee Member

Gene Hou

Committee Member

Leon R. L. Wang

Committee Member

Nahil Sobh

Abstract

Parallel-vector algorithms are presented for solving the geometrically nonlinear structural problems and obtaining design sensitivity information. A new algorithm is also presented for parallel generation and assembly of the finite element stiffness and mass matrices. The presented assembly algorithm is based on a node-by-node approach rather than the more conventional element-by-element approach. Three different methods, Newton Raphson, Modified Newton Raphson, and the BFGS, are used in the analysis of the nonlinear structural problems. A study is made to determine the performance of each of the mentioned methods in a parallel-vector computer environment. Medium to large-scale, practical problems are solved to evaluate the performance of each method. A hybrid method combining the direct and iterative solvers for linear system of equations is also presented to solve the nonlinear finite element problems. The proposed hybrid method combines the use of the Choleski method and the use of the pre-conditioned conjugate gradient method, to solve the nonlinear structural problem using the piecewise linear approximation method. A different approach for achieving a parallel-vector speed for the Successive Over Relaxation method is also presented in this work. The new approach for the S.O.R method reduces the cost of communications between processors on shared memory computers. Multi-processor Cray Y-MP and Cray 2 supercomputers are used in this work.

Rights

In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

DOI

10.25777/zkx1-qb75

Download

Share

COinS