Abstract
— The Lattice Solid Model has been used successfully as a virtual laboratory to simulate fracturing of rocks, the dynamics of faults, earthquakes and gouge processes. However, results from those simulations show that in order to make the next step towards more realistic experiments it will be necessary to use models containing a significantly larger number of particles than current models. Thus, those simulations will require a greatly increased amount of computational resources. Whereas the computing power provided by single processors can be expected to increase according to “Moore’s law,” i.e., to double every 18–24 months, parallel computers can provide significantly larger computing power today. In order to make this computing power available for the simulation of the microphysics of earthquakes, a parallel version of the Lattice Solid Model has been implemented. Benchmarks using large models with several millions of particles have shown that the parallel implementation of the Lattice Solid Model can achieve a high parallel-efficiency of about 80% for large numbers of processors on different computer architectures.
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Acknowledgements The research was funded by the Australian Research Council, QUAKES and The University of Queensland. The benchmarks would not have been possible without the support of SGI and VPAC, enabling the access to the 128 processor SGI Origin and the Compaq AlphaServer. Special thanks go to Mr. Gerald Hofer (SGI Brisbane), Mr. Bill Ryder (SGI New Zealand), Ms. Feng Wang and Mr. David Bannon (VPAC).
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Abe, S., Place, D. & Mora, P. A Parallel Implementation of the Lattice Solid Model for the Simulation of Rock Mechanics and Earthquake Dynamics. Pure appl. geophys. 161, 2265–2277 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-004-2562-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-004-2562-x