Finite Element Performance on High Performance Computing Systems

Sophisticated computer techniques, such as finite element analysis, are particularly well suited for supercomputers. The ANSYS^® finite element analysis program has been available since 1970 on a wide range of computers. Swanson Analysis Systems, Inc., developer of ANSYS, has defined a set of benchmark data consisting of large scale finite element examples to study various high performance computers. This paper presents the results of these studies as run on several high performance computers from Convex, CRAY, FPS. Honeywell and IBM. The results include run times, file sizes and vector vs scalar performance measures on the participating computers.