This is an optional module that enables a GPU solver specialized for simulating very large systems of granular materials with the penalty-based discrete element method (aka SMC).

Read the introduction to modules for a technical background on the modularity of the Chrono project.

Features

The GPU module allows users to construct a dynamic system consisting of spherical elements

Here are the main features:

a variety of friction models
- frictionless (optimized)
- single-step pseudo history
- multi-step history tracking
a variety of explicit time integrators
- forward Euler
- extended Taylor
- centered difference
- Chung
single-GPU scaling up to 700 million frictionless elements or 200 million full-history frictional elements
triangle meshes in order to facilitate co-simulation with a more full-featured solver (such as the ChSystem)

Requirements

To run applications based on this module you need
- a Pascal or newer Nvidia GPU (Pascal and newer are officially supported, though Maxwell should be able to emulate the required features)
- Linux or Windows
To build applications based on this module you must have CUDA installed

Building instructions

Repeat the instructions for the full installation, but when you see the CMake window, you must add the following steps:
Set the ENABLE_MODULE_GPU as 'on', then press 'Configure' (to refresh the variable list)
Press 'Configure' again, then 'Generate', and proceed as usual in the installation instructions.

How to use it

Look at the API section of this module for documentation about classes and functions.
Look at the C++ source of demos to learn how to use the functions of this module.

MacOS support

This module cannot be built for MacOS, Nvidia GPU hardware and CUDA are unsupported.