GPU Lattice Boltzmann fluid simulation with Sailfish

A 2D fluid simulation using the CUDA-based Sailfish solver on a GTX 280 video card. Sailfish is an Open Source implementation of the Lattice Boltzmann method for GPU devices (using CUDA and OpenCL). The colors represent the vorticity of the fluid. Check out http://dev.gentoo.org/~spock/projects/cuda/sailfish/doc/ to learn more about the project. The video was created by Marcin Kostur.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• fluid
• cfd
• lbm
• cuda
• opencl
• sailfish
• gpu
• gpgpu
• physics
• simulation
• computational
• lattice
• boltzmann

[boogie0815]

What exactly is 1 LUP - is it calculating all of the in/outgoing of one grid  cell or is it updating only one direction (=9 LUPs is one grid cell at D2Q9)?

[ytmjanusz]

@boogie0815 LUPS stands for Lattice-site Update Per Second, and it does not distinguish directions in any way. For instance, if the simulation domain is a 100 x 100 grid, and 10 time steps can be calculated per second, the performance estimate is 100*100*10 = 100,000 LUPS = 0.1 MLUPS.

[boogie0815]

@ytmjanusz Alright, got it. Thx for quick reply. I am working on a GLSL version of the LBM algorithm. Despite mine is _very_ simple, I have less than 100 MLUPS on a HD4770 :(

Are you still working on it? Project seems a little abandoned on the net - I would like to see some D3Q19 stuff ;)

[ytmjanusz]

@boogie0815 The project is very much alive and I'm still actively working on it. I have some patches queued up, they just haven't made it to the main repository yet. Also, D3Q19 has been supported for a long time now, there are just no YouTube videos for it ;)

[PeterMacGonagan]

Great! I would like to compute the lift on an airfoil. Do you think it's possible with your software?

[ytmjanusz]

The current version of Sailfish doesn't have any support for calculating drag/lift forces (that being said, it should be a relatively easy thing to add..). A more limiting factor might be the stability of the simulation in high-Re flows. What ranges of the Reynolds number are you interested in?

[incasmac]

Very interesting movie!!! If I ask a question of novice ^^!!! I work on a LBM solver, 3D with transport of a scalar (I solved the energy equation for the story ^ ^). I run the solver in parallel with MPI libraries. I wanted to know if it was feasible to transform the code for creates GPU solver? (I use FORTRAN90) thx

[elenglad]

It would be nice if someone left any information about the music used in this video.