Parallel CFD computing using shared memory OpenMP

Abstract

The eXtended Full-Potential (FPX) helicopter rotor Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code in its reduced two-dimensional version is successfully converted into a parallel version. The FPX code solves the full potential equation using an approximately factored finite-difference scheme. The parallel version of the code uses Open Multi-Processing (OpenMP) directives as parallel programming tool. Open MP based parallel code is portable and can be compiled with Fortran compiler that supports the OpenMP Fortran standard. OpenMP based parallel code can also be compiled using nonparallel Fortran compiler into a serial executable. The performance study of the parallel code is made. The results show that OpenMP is easy to use and a very efficient parallel programming tool for the present problem. Keywords: Parallel Computing, Computational Fluid Dynamics.