Billion Degree-of-Freedom Granular Dynamics Simulation on Commodity Hardware
Abstract This study describes the implementation of a granular dynamics solver designed to run on Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). The discussion concentrates on how the Discrete Element Method (DEM) has been mapped onto the GPU architecture, the software design decisions involved in the process, and the optimizations allowed by those decisions. This solver, called Chrono::Granular, has been developed as a standalone library that can interface with other dynamics engines via triangle mesh co-simulation. A scaling analysis of the code presented herein demonstrates linear scaling with problem sizes of over two billion degrees of freedom and closing in on one billion bodies. We conclude with a study of hourglass (or hopper) mass discharge rate which compares the solver to experimental results and investigates a process for determining empirical coefficients of flow rate through simulation.