Flosolver: A parallel computer for fluid dynamics

The Flosolver parallel computer designed and built at NAL for fluid dynamics problem solving is described. The computer has two nodes each having four processors based on Intel 8086-8087 chips. In each node one of the processors acts as host and has access to a section of the13; private memory of the remaining three processors through the Multibus.Inter-node communication is done using parallel ports. Synchronization and inter-processor communication is done by passing the message through a global memory. Prior to execution the host processor loads13; the absolute codes from a disk to the respective processors. Several fluid dynamical problems of practical interest have been programmed on Flosolver using concurrent algorithms, and show that it is comparable13; in speed with mainframes available in the country