Case study in parallel scientific computing: the boundary element method on a distributed-memory multicomputer

The Boundary Element Method is a widely-used discretization technique for solving boundary-value problems in engineering analysis. The solution of large problems by this method is limited by the storage and computational requirements for the generation and solution of large matrix systems resulting from the discretization. We discuss the implementation of these computations on the IBM SP-2 distributed-memory parallel computer, for applications involving the 3-D Laplace and Helmholtz equations.