Comprehensive Benchmark Suite for Simulation of Particle Laden Flows Using the Discrete Element Method with Performance Profiles from the Multiphase Flow with Interface eXchanges (MFiX) Code

Technical Report · Fri Jan 29 00:00:00 EST 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1237833· OSTI ID:1237833

Liu, Peiyuan ^[1]; Brown, Timothy ^[1]; Fullmer, William D. ^[1]; Hauser, Thomas ^[1]; Hrenya, Christine ^[1]; Grout, Ray ^[2]; Sitaraman, Hariswaran ^[2]

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1. Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States)
2. National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

Five benchmark problems are developed and simulated with the computational fluid dynamics and discrete element model code MFiX. The benchmark problems span dilute and dense regimes, consider statistically homogeneous and inhomogeneous (both clusters and bubbles) particle concentrations and a range of particle and fluid dynamic computational loads. Several variations of the benchmark problems are also discussed to extend the computational phase space to cover granular (particles only), bidisperse and heat transfer cases. A weak scaling analysis is performed for each benchmark problem and, in most cases, the scalability of the code appears reasonable up to approx. 103 cores. Profiling of the benchmark problems indicate that the most substantial computational time is being spent on particle-particle force calculations, drag force calculations and interpolating between discrete particle and continuum fields. Hardware performance analysis was also carried out showing significant Level 2 cache miss ratios and a rather low degree of vectorization. These results are intended to serve as a baseline for future developments to the code as well as a preliminary indicator of where to best focus performance optimizations.

• Research Organization: NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States))
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Fossil Energy (FE)
• DOE Contract Number: AC36-08GO28308
• OSTI ID: 1237833
• Report Number(s): NREL/TP--2C00-65637
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING
CFD
DEM
fluidized bed
granular flow
MFiX
polydispersity
risers