Building Effective Parallel Unstructured Adaptive Simulations by In-memory Integration of Existing Software Components

There is an increasing demand for mesh-based PDE simulations to provide reliable solutions for complex problems. A key step in ensuring simulation reliability is the application of unstructured adaptive meshing driven by error estimation procedures. Typically, interfacing of unstructured adaptive procedures with existing analysis components is done through files. File I/O is currently the critical bottleneck in parallel adaptive analysis, even when advanced parallel I/O methods are used. This paper presents an approach to eliminate this bottleneck for unstructured parallel adaptive simulations using in-memory integration of existing analysis components with adaptive meshing components. First, the design of APIs that transfer information between simulation components is provided, followed by an approach to address the technical challenges faced. Then, the design of the interoperable mesh adaptation and analysis components is given. The paper concludes with performance results obtained to date.