Improvement of the computational performance of a parallel unstructured WENO finite volume CFD code for Implicit Large Eddy Simulation

•Profiling of the computational performance of very high-order finite-volume WENO schemes.•Revising the CFD code employing BLAS libraries, formula rewriting and reduction of operations results in speed ups of up to 8.5 times faster code.•Higher-order WENO methods benefit the most of the optimisation performed.•Highest performance gains noticed in Knights-Landing architecture. In this paper the assessment and the enhancement of the computational performance of a high-order finite volume CFD code is presented. Weighted Essentially Non-Oscillatory (WENO) schemes are considered to be from the most computationally expensive numerical frameworks, in the context of high-resolution schemes particularly on hybrid unstructured grids. The focus of this study is to assess the computational bottlenecks of the solver for the WENO schemes for Implicit Large Eddy Simulation (ILES) and optimise the performance and efficiency through a series of code modifications e.g. formula rewriting, reduction of number operations, inclusion of linear systems libraries, non-blocking communications amongst others. The code is assessed on five different HPC systems; significant speed-up is achieved ranging from 1.5 to 8.5, with very high-order schemes benefiting the most. Good scalability is also obtained up to 104 number of cores, demonstrating viability and affordability of WENO type schemes for scale resolving simulations.