Understanding the Parallel Scalability of An Implicit Unstructured Mesh CFD Code

In this paper, we identify the scalability bottlenecks of an unstructured grid CFD code (PETSc-FUN3D) by studying the impact of several algorithmic and architectural parameters and by examining different programming models. We discuss the basic performance characteristics of this PDE code with the help of simple performance models developed in our earlier work, presenting primarily experimental results. In addition to achieving good per-processor performance (which has been addressed in our cited work and without which scalability claims are suspect) we strive to improve the implementation and convergence scalability of PETSc-FUN3D on thousands of processors.