Vortex particle method for aerodynamic analysis: parallel scalability and efficiency

This paper presents an analysis of the scalability and efficiency of a simulation framework based on the Vortex Particle Method (VPM). The code is applied for the numerical aerodynamic analysis of line-like structures. The numerical code runs on multicore CPU and GPU architectures using OpenCL framework. The focus of this paper is the analysis of the parallel efficiency and scalability of the method being applied to an engineering test case, namely the aero-elastic response of a long-span bridge girder. The target is to assess the optimal configuration and the required computer architecture, such that it becomes feasible to efficiently utilize the method within the computational resources available for a regular engineering office. The simulations and the scalability analysis are performed on a regular gaming-type computer