A high-performance backend-agnostic Material Point Method solver in Julia
We develop a user-friendly, high-performance Material Point Method (MPM) solver, MaterialPointSolver.jl , using the Julia language. The dual storage and interaction between material particles and the background grid limits the use of high-resolution models, and few solutions offer both performance and ease of use. Our backend-agnostic solver leverages GPU computing, enabling high-performance implementations across various platforms with a single codebase. We propose an effective memory throughput approach to evaluate GPU efficiency. The accuracy and efficiency of the solver are validated by four numerical examples, showing a 3.5 × speedup on a single-threaded CPU and a 19.4 × speedup on a 20-threaded CPU compared to optimized vectorized MATLAB code. Among four tested GPUs, it achieves a maximum average memory bandwidth utilization of 67%, reaching up to 78% (1453 GiB/s) in 2D tests. On the GH200 platform, the GPU shows a 21.3 × speedup over its multi-threaded CPU. Our solver can handle approximately 19.7 million double-precision material particles on a consumer-grade GPU with 10 GB memory, while on the GH200, it can manage around 190 million material particles. This study introduces advanced software capabilities along with backend-agnostic framework expertise to the field of geotechnical engineering. By utilizing parallel algorithms specifically designed for MPM and integrating a newly developed performance evaluation approach, it ensures rapid prototyping and seamless transition to production. This implementation empowers researchers and practitioners to promote the widespread adoption of high-resolution MPM models in geotechnical engineering. • Developed a high-performance Material Point Method solver for geomechanics. • Supports multiple hardware backends with a single codebase. • Simple installation and configuration lower the barrier to entry. • Performance is evaluated using effective memory throughput on the GH200 platform.
Authors
- Zenan Huo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3750-1709)
- Emmanuel Wyser (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6453-5165)
- Gang Mei (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0026-5423)
- Ludovic Räss (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1136-899X)
- Yury Podladchikov (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6369-7277)
- Yury Alkhimenkov (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6529-9256)
- Michel Jaboyedoff (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6419-695X)
Institutions
- China University of Geosciences (Beijing) (CN)
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
- University of Lausanne (CH)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Computers and Geotechnics
- Published
- 2025-03-15
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compgeo.2025.107189
- Citations
- 7
- Primary Topic
- Fluid Dynamics Simulations and Interactions
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 9.34