PLUM: Parallel Load Balancing for Adaptive Unstructured Meshes

Mesh adaption is a powerful tool for eecient unstructured-grid computations but causes load imbalance among processors on a parallel machine. We present a novel method called PLUM to dynamically balance the processor workloads with a global view. This paper describes the implementation and integration of all major components within our dynamic load balancing strategy for adaptive grid calculations. Mesh adaption, repartitioning, processor assignment, and remapping are critical components of the framework that must be accomplished rapidly and eeciently so as not to cause a signiicant overhead to the numerical simulation. A data redistribution model is also presented that predicts the remapping cost on the SP2. This model is required to determine whether the gain from a balanced workload distribution oosets the cost of data movement. Results presented in this paper demonstrate that PLUM is an eeective dynamic load balancing strategy which remains viable on a large number of processors.