AQUAgpusph, a new free 3D SPH solver accelerated with OpenCL

Abstract

In this paper, AQUAgpusph, a new free Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) software accelerated with OpenCL, is described. The main differences and progress with respect to other existing alternatives are considered. These are the use of the Open Computing Language (OpenCL) framework instead of the Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA), the implementation of the most popular boundary conditions, the easy customization of the code to different problems, the extensibility with regard to Python scripts, and the runtime output which allows the tracking of simulations in real time, or a higher frequency in saving some results without a significant performance lost. These modifications are shown to improve the solver speed, the results quality, and allow for a wider areas of application. AQUAgpusph has been designed trying to provide researchers and engineers with a valuable tool to test and apply the SPH method. Three practical applications are discussed in detail. The evolution of a dam break is used to quantify and compare the computational performance and modeling accuracy with the most popular SPH Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) accelerated alternatives. The dynamics of a coupled system, a Tuned Liquid Damper (TLD), is discussed in order to show the integration capabilities of the solver with external dynamics. Finally, the sloshing flow inside a nuclear reactor is simulated in order to show the capabilities of the solver to treat 3-D problems with complex geometries and of industrial interest. Program summaryProgram title: AQUAgpusph 1.5Catalogue identifier: AEVG_v1_0Program summary URL:http://cpc.cs.qub.ac.uk/summaries/AEVG_v1_0.htmlProgram obtainable from: CPC Program Library, Queen’s University, Belfast, N. IrelandLicensing provisions: GNU General Public License, version 3No. of lines in distributed program, including test data, etc.: 1702666No. of bytes in distributed program, including test data, etc.: 75117178Distribution format: tar.gzProgramming language: C++, OpenCL, Python.Computer: Linux based computers with OpenCL support.Operating system: Linux.Has the code been vectorized or parallelized?: Code is parallelized with OpenCL.Classification: 1.5.Nature of problem: Complex geometry or heavily fragmented free surface fluid dynamics problems where mesh based method cannot be successfully applied.Solution method: SPH is a meshless method where the fluid domain is discretized as a set of fluid particles. The fields in the fluid domain are smoothed using a kernel function, that allows to develop differential operators from the flow field values in scattered sets of particles.Running time: Using an AMD HD-7970 graphic device 2×105 time steps of a 2-D simulation, with 105 particles and 8×102 neighs per particle, is requiring around 9 h of computation. A more detailed performance analysis will be carried out in the practical application section herein.