X. Zhang, 

``Parallelizing an oil refining simulation: numerical methods,
implementations and experience". 

Early version of the paper was presented in the 1993 ACM International 
Conference on Supercomputing (ICS'93), Tokyo, Japan, July, 1993. 
The revised version was published in Parallel Computing, Vol. 21, No. 4, 1994.

Abstract 
-------- 

One important process in oil refining is to separate the crude oil
into various oil products.
This process is called {\em distillation}.
Engineers routinely perform a large computer simulation while
designing a complex distillation column.
This paper presents experience in parallelizing an oil refining
simulation application that computes the composition of the various
oil products in these distillation columns.
Mathematical models for the simulation form large sparse nonlinear
systems of equations.
Triangular decompositions of these sparse nonlinear systems are fundamental
numerical methods in this simulation.
The paper shows the application of different approaches for carrying
out this simulation in parallel.
Parallelizations of the simulation program are introduced at three
levels---direct, structured, and asynchronous.
The approaches of this practical research provide insight into
important issues of parallel computing for real-world applications.
The paper includes parallel implementations on the Intel iPSC/860 and
parallel computing results with comparisons and discussions.