Scalable and modular material point method for large-scale simulations

TL;DR

This paper introduces a scalable, modular material point method (MPM) code designed for large-scale continuum mechanics simulations, emphasizing parallelization, load balancing, and object-oriented design to enhance performance and flexibility.

Contribution

The paper presents a new scalable, modular MPM implementation with advanced parallelization and load-balancing techniques, improving large-scale simulation efficiency.

Findings

Effective parallelization scheme for large-scale MPM simulations

Improved load balancing for material points and mesh

Enhanced performance and portability of MPM code

Abstract

In this paper, we describe a new scalable and modular material point method (MPM) code developed for solving large-scale problems in continuum mechanics. The MPM is a hybrid Eulerian-Lagrangian approach, which uses both moving material points and computational nodes on a background mesh. The MPM has been successfully applied to solve large-deformation problems such as landslides, failure of slopes, concrete flows, etc. Solving these large-deformation problems result in the material points actively moving through the mesh. Developing an efficient parallelisation scheme for the MPM code requires dynamic load-balancing techniques for both the material points and the background mesh. This paper describes the data structures and algorithms employed to improve the performance and portability of the MPM code. An object-oriented programming paradigm is adopted to modularise the MPM code. The Unified Modelling Language (UML) diagram of the MPM code structure is shown in Figure 1.