Multitasking the three-dimensional shock wave code CTH on the Cray X-MP/416

CTH is a software system under development at Sandia National Laboratories Albuquerque that models multidimensional, multi-material, large-deformation, strong shock wave physics. CTH was carefully designed to both vectorize and multitask on the Cray X-MP/416. All of the physics routines are vectorized except the thermodynamics and the interface tracer. All of the physics routines are multitasked except the boundary conditions. The Los Alamos National Laboratory multitasking library was used for the multitasking. The resulting code is easy to maintain, easy to understand, gives the same answers as the unitasked code, and achieves a measured speedup of approximately 3.5 on the four cpu Cray. This document discusses the design, prototyping, development, and debugging of CTH. It also covers the architecture features of CTH that enhances multitasking, granularity of the tasks, and synchronization of tasks. The utility of system software and utilities such as simulators and interactive debuggers are also discussed. 5 refs., 7 tabs.