LBM Based Flow Simulation Using GPU Computing Processor

F. Kuznik (1) , C. Obrecht (1) , G. Rusaouen (1) , J.-J. Roux (1)

1 CETHIL - Centre de Thermique de Lyon

Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), originally developed for computer games, now provide computational power for scientific applications. In this paper, we develop a general purpose Lattice Boltzmann code that runs entirely on a single GPU. The results show that: (1) simple precision floating point arithmetic is sufficient for LBM computation in comparison to double precision; (2) the implementation of LBM on GPUs allows us to achieve up to about one billion lattice update per second using single precision floating point; (3) GPUs provide an inexpensive alternative to large clusters for fluid dynamics prediction.

Mots clés: Lattice Boltzmann method; Graphics Processing Unit; Fluid flow; Multi-threaded architecture

Domaines: Thermique [physics.class-ph]; Thermique [physics.class-ph]

F. Kuznik, C. Obrecht, G. Rusaouen, J.-J. Roux. LBM Based Flow Simulation Using GPU Computing Processor. Computers & Mathematics with Applications, 2010, 59 (7), pp.2380-2392. ⟨10.1016/j.camwa.2009.08.052⟩. ⟨hal-00470848⟩