Optimizing Extender Code for NCSX Analyses

Extender[1] is a parallel C++ code for calculating the magnetic field in the vacuum region of a stellarator. The code was optimized for speed and augmented with tools to maintain a specialized NetCDF database. Two parallel algorithms were examined. An even-block work-distribution scheme was comparable in performance to a master-slave scheme. Large speedup factors were achieved by representing the plasma surface with a spline rather than Fourier series. The accuracy of this representation and the resulting calculations relied on the density of the spline mesh. The Fortran 90 module db access was written to make it easy to store Extender output in a manageable database. New or updated data can be added to existing databases. A generalized PBS job script handles the generation of a database from scratch.