Software Library for Parallel Adaptive Mesh Refinement

A software library has been developed for use in parallel adaptive refinement of unstructured (irregular) meshes and grids in parallel scientific and engineering computing. This library can be used in finite-difference, finite-volume, and finite-element application programs that use two-dimensional triangular meshes or three-dimensional tetrahedral meshes. The library contains a suite of well designed and efficiently implemented modules that perform common operations in a parallel-adaptive-mesh-refinement (PAMR) process. These operations include (1) quality control during a successive PAMR process, typically guided by a local-error-estimate algorithm; and (2) parallel dynamic load-balancing of an adaptive mesh. The library was implemented in Fortran 90 and uses a message-passing-interface (MPI) library to support modularity, efficiency, and portability. The library is currently available on a Cray T3E computer at the Goddard Space Flight Center, and is being ported to a cluster of personal computers (a Beowulf-class system).