Accelerating lattice boltzmann fluid flow simulations using graphics processors

Peter Bailey, Joe Myre, Stuart D.C. Walsh, David J. Lilja, Martin O. Saar

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference PaperResearchpeer-review

155 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Lattice Boltzmann Methods (LBM) are used for the computational simulation of Newtonian fluid dynamics. LBM-based simulations are readily parallelizable; they have been implemented on general-purpose processors [1][2][3], field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) [4], and graphics processing units (GPUs) [5][6][7]. Of the three methods, the GPU implementations achieved the highest simulation performance per chip. With memory bandwidth of up to 141 GB/s and a theoretical maximum floating point performance of over 600 GFLOPS [8], CUDA-ready GPUs from NVIDIA provide an attractive platform for a wide range of scientific simulations, including LBM. This paper improves upon prior single-precision GPU LBM results for the D3Q19 model [7] by increasing GPU multiprocessor occupancy, resulting in an increase in maximum performance by 20%, and by introducing a space-efficient storage method which reduces GPU RAM requirements by 50% at a slight detriment to performance. Both GPU implementations are over 28 times faster than a singleprecision quad-core CPU version utilizing OpenMP.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of The 38th International Conference on Parallel Processing
Subtitle of host publicationICPP-2009
Place of PublicationUSA
PublisherIEEE, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Pages550-557
Number of pages8
ISBN (Print)9780769538020
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Dec 2009
Externally publishedYes
EventInternational Conference on Parallel Processing 2009 - Vienna University of Technology, Vienna, Austria
Duration: 22 Sept 200925 Sept 2009
Conference number: 38th

Conference

ConferenceInternational Conference on Parallel Processing 2009
Abbreviated titleICPP 2009
Country/TerritoryAustria
CityVienna
Period22/09/0925/09/09

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