GPU acceleration for evolutionary topology optimization of continuum structures using isosurfaces

Evolutionary topology optimization of three-dimensional continuum structures is a computationally demanding task in terms of memory consumption and processing time. This work aims to alleviate these constraints proposing a well-suited strategy for Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) computing. Such a proposal adopts a fine-grained GPU instance of matrix-free iterative solver for structural analysis and an efficient GPU implementation for isosurface extraction and volume fraction calculation. The performance of the solving stage is evaluated using two preconditioning techniques, including the comparison with the sparse-matrix CPU implementation. The proposal is evaluated using topology optimization problems for real-world applications.We gratefully acknowledge the support of NVIDIA Corporation with the donation of some of the GPUs used for this research. Such a work has also been supported by the research support programmes of Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under the contract DPI2016-77538-R and \Fundación Séneca Agencia de Ciencia y Tecnología de la Región de Murcia" under the contract 19274/PI/14