Alya: Multiphysics engineering simulation toward exascale

Abstract

Abstract. Alya is a multi-physics simulation code developed at Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC). From its inception Alya code is designed using advanced High Performance Computing programming techniques to solve coupled problems on supercomputers efficiently. The target domain is engineering, with all its particular features: complex geometries and unstructured meshes, coupled multi-physics with exotic coupling schemes and physical models, ill-posed problems, flexibility needs for rapidly including new models, etc. Since its beginnings in 2004, Alya has scaled well in an increasing number of processors when solving single-physics problems such as fluid mechanics, solid mechanics, acoustics, etc. Over time, we have made a concerted effort to maintain and even improve scalability for multi-physics problems. This poses challenges on multiple fronts, including: numerical models, parallel implementation, physical coupling models, algorithms and solution schemes, meshing process, etc. In this paper, we introduce Alya's main features and focus particularly on its solvers. We present Alya's performance up to 100.000 processors in Blue Waters, the NCSA supercomputer with selected multi-physics tests that are representative of the engineering world. The tests are incompressible flow in a human respiratory system, low Mach combustion problem in a kiln furnace, and coupled electro-mechanical contraction of the heart. We show scalability plots for all cases and discuss all aspects of such simulations, including solver convergence.Key words. Multi-physics coupling, Parallelisation, Computational Mechanics 1. Introduction. Across a range of engineering fields, the use of computational models is pervasive in the whole design and manufacturing process. In complex systems, High Performance Computing (HPC) plays an essential role in simulation and modelling. Researchers and manufacturing teams depend on HPC to create safe cars and energy-efficient aircraft as well as effective communication systems and efficient supply chain models. Availability of advanced HPC technologies has also fundamentally altered the investigative paradigm in the field of biomechanics. But paradoxically, for many engineers and researchers, the existing hardware and software cannot be used to solve their problems. There are many reasons why this happens, but we focus here in only two. On one hand, current HPC systems lack the computational power, network bandwidth and data storage needed for solving tomorrow's real-world engineering challenges. On the other hand, while emerging peta-scale computing is already a strategic enabler of large-scale simulations in many scientific areas (such as astronomy, biology and chemistry), even the most powerful hardware will fail to deliver on its full potential unless matched with simulation software designed specifically for such environments.Several papers describe the effort of performing large-scale simulations on supercomputers, covering key areas: molecular dynamics [26], mantle convection in solid earth dynami...

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