Parallelization of a three-dimensional compressible transition code

Abstract

The compressible, three-dimensional, time-dependent Navier-Stokes equations are solved on a 20 processor Flex/32 computer. The code is a parallel implementation of an existing code operational on the Cray-2 at NASA Ames, which performs direct simulations of the initial stages of the transition process of wall-bounded flow at supersonic Mach numbers. Spectral collocation in all three spatial directions (Fourier along the plate and Chebyshev normal to it) ensures high accuracy of the flow variables. By hiding most of the parallelism in low-level routines, the casual user is shielded from most of the nonstandard coding constructs. Speedups of 13 out of a maximum of 16 are achieved on the largest computational grids.