Parallel dynamic graph-partitioning for unstructured meshes

A parallel method for the dynamic partitioning of unstructured meshes is described. The method introduces a new iterative optimisation technique known as relative gain optimisation which both balances the workload and attempts to minimise the interprocessor communications overhead. Experiments on a series of adaptively refined meshes indicate that the algorithm provides partitions of an equivalent or higher quality to static partitioners (which do not reuse the existing partition) and much more rapidly. Perhaps more importantly, the algorithm results in only a small fraction of the amount of data migration compared to the static partitioners