Parallel computational microhydrodynamics: scalable load-balancing strategies

The hydrodynamic interactions in a suspension of small particles in a viscous fluid is computed by a boundary integral velocity representation featuring a completed double-layer potential (completed double-layer boundary integral equation method or CDL = BIEM). A multiple expansion is used to represent interactions between distance particles, leading to a considerable improvement in computational speed. The resulting large linear system of equations provides an ideal setting for asynchronous iterative solvers (block Gauss-Seidel) on a message-passing MIMD parallel computer (Intel iPSC/860 Hypercube) using a supervisor-workers load-balancing strategy. Our benchmark results as a function of problem size and number of processors suggest that our algorithm will scale successfully to the massively parallel computers of the future.