Sensitivity analysis for large-deflection and postbuckling responses on distributed-memory computers (Q2564535)

A computational strategy is presented for calculating sensitivity coefficients for the nonlinear large-deflection and postbuckling response of laminated composite structures on distributed-memory parallel computers. The strategy is applicable to any message-passing distributed computational environment. The key elements of the proposed strategy are: (a) a multiple-parameter reduced basis technique; (b) a parallel sparse equation solver based on a nested dissection (or multilevel substructuring) node ordering scheme; and (c) a multilevel parallel procedure for evaluating hierarchical sensitivity coefficients. The numerical studies presented demonstrate the advantages of the reduced basis technique for hierarchical sensitivity analysis on distributed-memory machines.