To improve performance and reduce analysis times, flow5 uses Intel’s Math Kernel Library (Intel MKL) to perform operations on linear systems.
Intel MKL is a library of optimized math routines for science, engineering, and financial applications. Core math functions include BLAS, LAPACK, ScaLAPACK, sparse solvers, fast Fourier transforms, and vector math. The routines in MKL are hand-optimized specifically for Intel processors. The library supports Intel processors and is available for Windows, Linux and macOS operating systems.
The performance and efficiency of this library is impressive and has led to a dramatic reduction in analysis times compared to those of xflr5.
A quick comparison has been performed on a standard 3d panel case. On a medium range laptop with an Intel i5 – 4 core processor, analysis times are reduced by a factor 15-20x for large matrix sizes
The gain in performance measured on a 2014 mac Mini is 6 to 8x.
Important note: although the MKL library should run on processors other than Intel with comparable performance, please note that there is no guarantee from Intel that this will indeed be the case.