Kron's Method of Tearing on a Transputer Array
K. Bowden · The Computer Journal · 1990
Kron's Method is a means of decomposing physical systems into subsystems with the particular property that the subsystems overlap on their boundaries. It is found that the solution of typical engineering problems is facilitated by this decomposition or tearing. Computational time and memory requirements are both improved, and the technique has the advantage that the individual subsystems can be resolved under change of input conditions or structure and the overall solution updated without the need for a global resolution. The technique is efficient on sequential machines but is ideally suited to MIMD (multiple-instruction multiple-data) machines such as those that can be constructed from the Inmos transputer. This paper discusses the implementation, in Occam, of direct, non-iterative methods of solution of torn systems on a network of pipelined transputers. In particular the software has been used to solve Laplace's equation on a finite difference mesh.