Scaling up of a Highly Parallel LBM-based Simulation tool (PRATHAM) for Meso- as well as Large-Scale Laminar and Turbulent Flow and Heat Transfer

Rizwan Uddin, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Usage Details

We propose to test and scale PRATHAM—a LBM-based code for 3D, time dependent, laminar and turbulent fluid flow—on Blue Waters. PRATHAM is a laminar and turbulent flow and heat transfer simulation tool for high-fidelity, time-dependent analyses of mesoscale (as well as larger scale) systems. The simulation tool is based on the Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM), a relatively novel kinetic approach to simulate transient flow dynamics. Because of the LBM’s excellent parallel scalability, the tool is ideally suited for multicore and hybrid GPU-based supercomputing clusters. There are four broader sub-goals of this research, of which the first two are targeted here: 1) implement and test the LBM code on Blue Waters; 2) demonstrate the scalability of the code to tens of thousands of processors; 3) apply the code to solve a challenging turbulent flow problem in a rod bundle in a nuclear power plant to demonstrate its potential; and 4) add new modeling capabilities to address multi-physics problems of interest to the university community and funding agencies.