A geometric data structure for parallel finite elements and the application to multigrid methods with block smoothing

We present a data structure for parallel computing which is directly linked to geometric quantities of an underlying mesh and which is well adapted to the requirements of a general finite element realization. In addition, we define an abstract linear algebra model which supports multigrid methods (extending our previous work in Comp. Vis. Sci. 1 (1997), 27–40). Finally, we apply the parallel multigrid preconditioner to several configurations in linear elasticity and we compute the condition number numerically for different smoothers, resulting in a quantitative evaluation of parallel multigrid performance.