Abstract: In the past two decades, the development of finite element algorithms for structuralengineering applications has received a boost due to the advent of parallel computers.Considerable research has been done in order to rewrite algorithms originally designed to run onsequential machines as well as to develop new methods that take advantage of the parallelismoffered by the multiprocessing computers. This paper discusses some of the parallel finiteelement algorithms that have been developed in this field. It is a survey of parallel finite elementalgorithms that are of interest to structural engineering. Some future research tendencies in thisfield are presented. Parallel processing is a rapidly evolving field and it is the focus of intensiveresearch worldwide. Parallel processing will become an important and effective method in thefuture structural finite element computations.