Parallelisation Technique for Serial 3D Seismic Codes: SMS Approach

Abstract

We investigate a fast and easy way to parallelise seismological serial codes mainly oriented for simulating the seismic wave propagation through anelastic dissipative media. Having an efficient modelling tool is important in both assessing strong ground motion and mitigation of seismic hazard when the site effects are considered, and in crustal propagation when the crustal geological structures are of interest. Our chosen case study is repre- sentative of a set of such seismological 3D problems. The Scalable Modelling System (SMS) tool for paralleliza- tion is considered. The IBM SP5 native compiler has been used. Results such as Speed-Up and Efficiency are shown and discussed. SMS can run both in shared and distributed memory environments. The greater advantages of using SMS in such environments become apparent with the utilisation of a higher number of multiprocessor machines arranged in a cluster. We also demonstrate how successful porting from serial to parallel codes is re- alised by way of minimal instructions (6% of the serial original code only) provided that an ad hoc profiling analysis of the serial code is first performed.