Multiphase mesh partitioning for parallel computational mechanics codes

We consider the load-balancing problems which arise from parallel scientific codes containing multiple computational phases, or loops over subsets of the data, which are separated by global synchronisation points. We motivate, derive and describe the implementation of an approach which we refer to as the multiphase mesh partitioning strategy to address such issues. The technique is tested on example meshes containing multiple computational phases and it is demonstrated that our method can achieve high quality partitions where a standard mesh partitioning approach fails.