PELLPACK: A Problem-Solving Environment for PDE-Based Applications on Multicomputer Platforms

Abstract

This article presents the software architecture and implementation of the problem-solving environment (PSE) PELLPACK for modeling physical objects described by partial differential equations (PDEs). The scope of this PSE is broad, as PELLPACK incorporates many PDE solving systems, and some of these, in turn, include several specific PDE solving methods. Its coverage for 1D, 2D, and 3D elliptic or parabolic problems is quite broad, and it handles some hyperbolic problems. Since a PSE should provide complete support for the problem-solving process, PELLPACK also contains a large amount of code to support graphical user interfaces, analytic tools, user help, domain or mesh partitioning, machine and data selection, visualization, and various other tasks. Its total size is well over 1 million lines of code. Its open-ended software architecture consists of several software layers. The top layer is an interactive graphical interface for specifying the PDE model and its solution framework. This interface saves the results of the user specification in the form of a very high level PDE language which is an alternative interface to the PELLPACK system. This language also allows a user to specify the PDE problem and its solution framework textually in a natural form. The PELLPACK language preprocessor generates a Fortran control program with the interfaces, calls to specified components and libraries of the PDE solution framework, and functions defining the PDE problem. The PELLPACK program execution is supported by a high-level tool where the virtual parallel system is defined, where the execution mode, file system, and hardware resources are selected, and where the compilation, loading, and execution are controlled. Finally, the PELLPACK PSE integrates several PDE libraries and PDE systems available in the public domain. The system employs several parallel reuse methodologies based on the decomposition of discrete geometric data to map sparse PDE computations to parallel machines. An instance of the system is available as a Web server (WebPELLPACK) for public use at http://pellpack.cs.purdue.edu.