A transputer based parallel algorithm for surface panel analysis

A surface panel method has been developed to run In parallel across variable sized square arrays of transputers. A geometric parallelism is used for both the data distribution and the algorithm. A flexible geometry definition allows complex three-dimensional surfaces and multiple body problems to be solved. Each body surface is sub-divided into quadrilateral panels. A fast parallel block-iterative solver was developed which allows rapid solution of the dense but diagonally dominant linear system of equations. The parallel performance of the surface panel code is described and the necessary scaling of number of transputers and distributed memory per transputer to obtain solutions of surface panel problems of order of 10,000 panels is given. A final section gives, as an example. the use of the code in predicting ship rudder-propeller Interaction