A frontal code for the solution of sparse positive-definite symmetric systems arising from finite-element applications

Abstract

We describe the design, implementation, and performance of a frontal code for the solution of large sparse symmetric systems of linear finite-element equations. The code is intended primarily for positive-definite systems, since numerical pivoting is not performed. The resulting software package, MA62, will be included in the Harwell Subroutine Library. We illustrate the performance of our new code on a range of problems arising from real engineering and industrial applications. The performance of the code is compared with that of the Harwell Subroutine Library general frontal solver MA42 and with other positive-definite codes from the Harwell Subroutine Library. Categories and Subject Descriptors: G.1.0 [Numerical Analysis]: General - Numerical algorithms; G.1.3 [Numerical Analysis]: Numerical Linear Algebra - Sparse, structured and very large systems (direct and iterative methods).