\section*{Conclusions}

The Archimedes project was begun in order to
bring state-of-the-art computing to state-of-the-art engineering.
Our main goal was to design and build
general-purpose tools that would allow researchers in engineering and
science to model the complexities of the complicated
spatial domains encountered
in finite element computations.

The result, Archimedes, 
is an automated system for solving partial differential equations on
irregular spatial domains using finite element methods.
Archimedes performs automated 
mesh generation, partitioning,
placement and routing of subproblems, and code generation for 
distributed memory parallel machines.
While the mesh generation and partitioning stages of the process
are machine-independent, 
the characteristics of the target parallel machine are taken into account
in the placement, routing, and code generation stages of the process.
We feel that Archimedes has demonstrated the feasibility of such
general-purpose automated tools for the parallel solution of complex
engineering problems.

Since its original implementation for the iWarp and CM-5 systems, we
have retargeted Archimedes to the Cray T3D, the Intel Paragon, and networks
of workstations (using MPI).
Other architectures are
planned.  It generally requires only a week or
two of effort to retarget the code generator.

Archimedes has duplicated the original 3D seismic ground
motion study that motivated its development, and is currently being used on a
production basis to model ground motion in
2D and 3D basins~\cite{bielak95}.  Our colleagues are simulating
earthquakes in San Fernando,
using 3D meshes containing as many as 76 million tetrahedral
elements.  (A smaller version of the San Fernando
mesh appears as Figure~\ref{sf5};
the features of the full-size
76 million element mesh are too small to distinguish.)
Ultimately, Archimedes will be used to model the entire Los Angeles basin.

\begin{figure}
\centerline{\epsfbox{sf5.eps}}
\caption{\label{sf5}
Finite element mesh used to model seismic ground motion in San Fernando,
partitioned for 64 processors.}
\end{figure}
