A modular massively parallel computing environment for three-dimensional multiresolution simulations of compressible flows

Abstract

Numerical investigation of compressible flows faces two main challenges. In order to accurately describe the flow characteristics, high-resolution nonlinear numerical schemes are needed to capture discontinuities and resolve wide convective, acoustic and interfacial scale ranges. The simulation of realistic 3D problems with state-of-the-art FVM based on approximate Riemann solvers with weighted nonlinear reconstruction schemes requires the usage of HPC architectures. Efficient compression algorithms reduce computational and memory load. Fully adaptive MR algorithms with LTS have proven their potential for such applications. While modern CPU require multiple levels of parallelism to achieve peak performance, the fine grained MR mesh adaptivity results in challenging compute/communication patterns. Moreover, LTS incur for strong data dependencies which challenge a parallelization strategy. We address these challenges with a block-based MR algorithm, where arbitrary cuts in the underlying octree are possible. This allows for a parallelization on distributed-memory machines via the MPI. We obtain neighbor relations by a simple bit-logic in a modified Morton Order. The block-based concept allows for a modular setup of the source code framework in which the building blocks of the algorithm, such as the choice of the Riemann solver or the reconstruction stencil, are interchangeable without loss of parallel performance. We present the capabilities of the modular framework with a range of test cases and scaling analysis with effective resolutions beyond one billion cells using $\mathcal{O}(10^3)$ cores.