A parallel block overlap preconditioning with inexact submatrix inversion for linear elasticity problems

We present a parallel preconditioned iterative solver for large sparse symmetric positive definite linear systems. The preconditioner is constructed as a proper combination of advanced preconditioning strategies. It can be formally seen as being of domain decomposition type with algebraically constructed overlap. Similar to the classical domain decomposition technique, inexact subdomain solvers are used, based on incomplete Cholesky factorization. The proper preconditioner is shown to be near optimal in minimizing the so-called K-condition number of the preconditioned matrix. The efficiency of both serial and parallel versions of the solution method is illustrated on a set of benchmark problems in linear elasticity. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.