Matching LS-DYNA Explicit, Implicit, Hybrid Technologies with SGI Architectures

LSTC has now integrated Explicit, Implicit solver technologies into a single hybrid code base allowing seamless switching from large time steps transient dynamics to linear statics and normal modes analysis. There are multiple computer architectures available from SGI to run LS- DYNA. They can all run LSTC solvers using Shared Memory Parallelism (SMP), Distributed Memory Parallelism (DMP) and their combination (Hybrid Mode) as supported by LS-DYNA. Because computer resources requirements are different for Explicit and Implicit solvers, this paper will study how advanced SGI computer systems, ranging from multi-node Distributed Memory Processor clusters to Shared Memory Processor servers address the computer resources required and what tradeoffs are involved. The paper will also outline the specifications of running LS-DYNA jobs on Cyclone, SGI’s HPC cloud computing infrastructure using d3View. d3View is a simulation data management and visualization software that extends the use of HPC by performing simulation data extraction and analysis on the compute nodes.