Performing incremental dynamic analysis in parallel

摘要

Incremental dynamic analysis has recently emerged to offer comprehensive evaluation of the seismic performance of structures using multiple nonlinear dynamic analyses under scaled ground-motion records. Being computer-intensive, it can benefit from parallel processing to accelerate its application on realistic structural models. While the task-farming master-slave paradigm seems ideal, severe load imbalances arise due to analysis non-convergence at structural instability, prompting the examination of task partitioning at the level of single records or single dynamic runs. Combined with a multi-tier master-slave processor hierarchy employing dynamic task generation and self-scheduling we achieve a flexible and efficient parallel algorithm with excellent scalability.