Fluent software has consistently led the way in providing CFD solutions that take advantage of the latest technology advances. The latest innovation is the availability of FLUENT, FLUENT/UNS, and RAMPANT parallel processing on multiple-processor Intel architecture workstations running Windows NT (referred to as IA/NT). Close partnerships with Fluent's hardware and software partners have ensured industry-leading performance on multiprocessor IA/NT platforms.

FLUENT/UNS and RAMPANT 4.2 have been parallelized for IA/NT using the domain decomposition approach used by Fluent software on UNIX platforms. IA/NT parallel processing was applied to FLUENT 4.5 with OpenMP directives in a joint project with Kuck & Associates, Inc. using their Guide software.

Average speedup of FLUENT 4.5 on test cases A through D. Mesh sizes vary from 40000 to 300000 cells. (Tests performed on IA/AT Compaq and IBM Pentium II 2-processor systems.)

The performance results illustrate that dual-processor Intel SMPs provide a substantial performance increase over single-processor NT workstations. While scaling on more processors does not yet match the performance of UNIX-based systems, our efforts put us in a position to take full advantage of the Windows NT operating system and Intel SMP architecture as they improve and mature.

Average speedup of FLUENT/UNS on a 270000-cell application. (Tests performed on Hewlett-Packard and IBM Pentium II 2-processor systems, and on a Compaq Pentium Pro 4-processor system.)

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