Adaptive computations may converge more quickly with fewer lattice points but the cost on parallel machinery is possible nonuniformity in both computation and communication stemming from interpolation and data management. To make adaptive methods useful on parallel machines, this group has developed an algorithm using fixed- sized patches and nonstandard data layouts. The end result is that no router communication takes place when patches at the finest level exchange data. All communication between adjacent levels is local. The algorithm can be applied to systems of hyperbolic conservation laws and is instantiated with the equations of compressible fluid dynamics.
Future work is divided into two areas.
As data parallel languages grow in sophistication, the algorithm can be optimized further by simultaneously integrating multiple patches. Additionally, interpolation can also be done in parallel. The group has planned to move the method to other programming environments.