Parallelism in finite element modelling

Parallel processes can be identified at several different levels in the computational simulation of physical processes and problems. We first briefly sketch the main steps involved in modelling physical processes and give examples where inherent parallelism is evident. We then proceed more specifically to describe both inherent and induced parallelism that occur when finite element methods are applied to the solution of boundary and evolution problems, and indicate several opportunitites for parallel processing in finite element analysis.