Parallelization of implicit finite difference schemes in computational fluid dynamics

Implicit finite difference schemes are often the preferred numerical schemes in computational fluid dynamics, requiring less stringent stability bounds than the explicit schemes. Each iteration in an implicit scheme involves global data dependencies in the form of second and higher order recurrences. Efficient parallel implementations of such iterative methods are considerably more difficult and non-intuitive. The parallelization of the implicit schemes that are used for solving the Euler and the thin layer Navier-Stokes equations and that require inversions of large linear systems in the form of block tri-diagonal and/or block penta-diagonal matrices is discussed. Three-dimensional cases are emphasized and schemes that minimize the total execution time are presented. Partitioning and scheduling schemes for alleviating the effects of the global data dependencies are described. An analysis of the communication and the computation aspects of these methods is presented. The effect of the boundary conditions on the parallel schemes is also discussed

Unstructured mesh algorithms for aerodynamic calculations

The use of unstructured mesh techniques for solving complex aerodynamic flows is discussed. The principle advantages of unstructured mesh strategies, as they relate to complex geometries, adaptive meshing capabilities, and parallel processing are emphasized. The various aspects required for the efficient and accurate solution of aerodynamic flows are addressed. These include mesh generation, mesh adaptivity, solution algorithms, convergence acceleration, and turbulence modeling. Computations of viscous turbulent two-dimensional flows and inviscid three-dimensional flows about complex configurations are demonstrated. Remaining obstacles and directions for future research are also outlined

A Parallel Mesh-Adaptive Framework for Hyperbolic Conservation Laws

We report on the development of a computational framework for the parallel, mesh-adaptive solution of systems of hyperbolic conservation laws like the time-dependent Euler equations in compressible gas dynamics or Magneto-Hydrodynamics (MHD) and similar models in plasma physics. Local mesh refinement is realized by the recursive bisection of grid blocks along each spatial dimension, implemented numerical schemes include standard finite-differences as well as shock-capturing central schemes, both in connection with Runge-Kutta type integrators. Parallel execution is achieved through a configurable hybrid of POSIX-multi-threading and MPI-distribution with dynamic load balancing. One- two- and three-dimensional test computations for the Euler equations have been carried out and show good parallel scaling behavior. The Racoon framework is currently used to study the formation of singularities in plasmas and fluids.Comment: late submissio

Nonlinear fluid-structure interaction problem. Part II: space discretization, implementation aspects, nested parallelization and application examples

International audienceThe main focus of the present article is the development of a general solution framework for coupled and/or interaction multi-physics problems based upon re-using existing codes into software products. In particular, we discuss how to build this software tool for the case of fluid-structure interaction problem, from finite element code Feap for structural and finite volume code OpenFOAM for fluid mechanics. This is achieved by using the Component Template Library (CTL) to provide the coupling between the existing codes into a single software product. The present CTL code-coupling procedure accepts not only different discretization schemes, but different languages, with the solid component written in Fortran and fluid component written in \Cpp. Moreover, the resulting CTL-based code also accepts the nested parallelization. The proposed coupling strategy is detailed for explicit and implicit fixed-point iteration solver presented in the Part I of this paper, referred to Direct Force-Motion Transfer/Block-Gauss-Seidel. However, the proposed code-coupling framework can easily accommodate other solution schemes. The selected application examples are chosen to confirm the capability of the code-coupling strategy to provide a quick development of advanced computational tools for demanding practical problems, such as 3D fluid models with free-surface flows interacting with structures

Adaptive Mesh Fluid Simulations on GPU

We describe an implementation of compressible inviscid fluid solvers with block-structured adaptive mesh refinement on Graphics Processing Units using NVIDIA's CUDA. We show that a class of high resolution shock capturing schemes can be mapped naturally on this architecture. Using the method of lines approach with the second order total variation diminishing Runge-Kutta time integration scheme, piecewise linear reconstruction, and a Harten-Lax-van Leer Riemann solver, we achieve an overall speedup of approximately 10 times faster execution on one graphics card as compared to a single core on the host computer. We attain this speedup in uniform grid runs as well as in problems with deep AMR hierarchies. Our framework can readily be applied to more general systems of conservation laws and extended to higher order shock capturing schemes. This is shown directly by an implementation of a magneto-hydrodynamic solver and comparing its performance to the pure hydrodynamic case. Finally, we also combined our CUDA parallel scheme with MPI to make the code run on GPU clusters. Close to ideal speedup is observed on up to four GPUs.Comment: Submitted to New Astronom