Numerical performance of parallel group explicit solvers for the solution of fourth order elliptic equations

Many applications in applied mathematics and engineering involve numerical solutions of partial differential equations (PDEs). Various discretisation procedures such as the finite difference method result in a problem of solving large, sparse systems of linear equations. In this paper, a group iterative numerical scheme based on the rotated (skewed) five-point finite difference discretisation is proposed for the solution of a fourth order elliptic PDE which represents physical situations in fluid mechanics and elasticity. The rotated approximation formulas lead to schemes with lower computational complexities compared to the centred approximation formulas since the iterative procedure need only involve nodes on half of the total grid points in the solution domain. We describe the development of the parallel group iterative scheme on a cluster of distributed memory parallel computer using Message-Passing Interface (MPI) programming environment. A comparative study with another group iterative scheme derived from the centred difference formula is also presented. A detailed performance analysis of the parallel implementations of both group methods will be reported and discussed.