On the Performance of a 2D Unstructured Computational Rheology Code on a GPU
Simão P. Pereira a), Kees Vuik b), Fernando T. Pinho c), João M. Nóbrega a)
 a) I3N-Institute for Polymers and Composites, University of Minho, Campus Azurém, Guimarães 4800-058, Portugal
b) Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science, Department of Applied Mathematics, Mekelweg 4, 2628 CD, Delft, The Netherlands
c) CEFT, Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, s/n, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal

Abstract. The present work explores the massively parallel capabilities of the most advanced architecture of graphics processing units (GPUs) code named “Fermi”, on a two-dimensional unstructured cell-centred finite volume code. We use the SIMPLE algorithm to solve the continuity and momentum equations that was fully ported to the GPU. The benefits of this implementation are compared with a serial implementation that traditionally runs on the central processing unit (CPU). The developed codes were assessed with the bench-mark problems of Poiseuille flow, for Newtonian and generalized Newtonian fluids, as well as by the lid-driven cavity and the sudden expansion flows for Newtonian fluids. The parallel (GPU) code accelerated the resolution of those three problems by factors of 19, 10 and 11, respectively, in comparison with the corresponding CPU single core counterpart. The results are a clear indication that GPUs are and will be useful in the field of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) for rheologically simple and complex fluids.

Keywords: Graphics processing units, Computational fluid dynamics, Parallelization, Finite volume method, Unstructured meshes.