Aerospace simulations on parallel computers using unstructured grids

If complex simulations on realistic configurations are to be performed, it is critical that the large volume of data that will be produced can be handled efficiently. In our work, we have chosen to parallelize all the steps in the computational cycle; unstructured mesh generation, solvers, adaptation and visualization. In this way, data is distributed at the early stage of mesh generation and is never brought together, thereby preventing data bottlenecks. Using these parallel modules, large‐scale simulations have been performed for both computational fluid dynamics and computational electromagnetics. The paper briefly describes the approaches taken to parallelizing the unstructured grid techniques and examples are given using meshes to a quarter of a billion elements. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.