Benchmarking of the ADCIRC Hydrodynamic Model on Workstation Clusters

(Keywords: shallow water modeling, GWC equation, finite elements) This report presents the results of a series of benchmarking tests conducted using the parallel version of the ADCIRC hydrodynamic model. In particular, these tests compared the performance of the original version of the ADCIRC model against that of a similar version that includes a predictor-corrector (implicit) time-stepping algorithm. As will be shown, the enhanced stability of this new algorithm allows simulations to be completed in less wall-clock time, without a decrease in scalability. We benchmarked these two versions of the model on two 16-processor workstation clusters: one consisting of Sun UltraSparc IIe processors, and another consisting of Intel Pentium III processors. Results indicate that the predictor-corrector algorithm provides the same enhanced stability in parallel that it does in serial, allowing for larger time steps and shorter wall-clock times. Results also indicate that the two platforms show similar performance, though the Intel platform is slightly better in some instances