GPU accelerated MFiX-DEM simulations of granular and multiphase flows

In this research, a Graphical Processing Unit (GPU) accelerated Discrete Element Method (DEM) code was developed and coupled with the Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) software MFiX to simulate granular and multiphase flows with heat transfers and chemical reactions. The Fortran-based CFD solver was coupled with the CUDA/C++ based DEM solver through inter-process pipes. The speedup to the CPU version of MFiX-DEM is about 130-243 folds in the simulation of particle packings. In fluidized bed simulations, the DEM computation time is reduced from 91% to 17% with a speedup of 78 folds. The simulation of Geldart A particle fluidization revealed a similar level of importance of both fluid and particle coarse-graining. The filtered drag derived from the two-fluid model is suitable for EulerLagrangian simulations with both fluid and particle coarse-graining. It overcorrects the influence of sub grid structures if used for simulations with only fluid coarse-graining. (c) 2021 Chinese Society of Particuology and Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Automated summary

In this research, a GPU-accelerated DEM code was developed and coupled with the CFD software MFiX to simulate granular and multiphase flows with heat transfers and chemical reactions. The simulation results showed a significant speedup in both particle packings and fluidized bed simulations, with the importance of fluid and particle coarse-graining highlighted.