Experiences of Parallelising Finite-element Problems in a Functional Style

Experiences are described of parallelizing a functional finite-element program (written in Haskell) for the solution of computational fluid-dynamics problems. A transformation prototyping approach using a system developed at the University of York, which simulates idealised parallel machines on a conventional sequential workstation, is presented. In this paper we demonstrate: (a) the relative simplicity of the functional approach for parallelizing a complex program compared with the conventional procedural approach; (b) the suitability of functional languages for prototyping parallel algorithms to improve an implementation; and (c) the considerable assistance provided by the simulator.