A parallel dual-grid multiscale approach to CFD–DEM couplings

In this work, a new parallel dual-grid multiscale approach for CFD–DEM couplings is investigated. Dual-grid multiscale CFD–DEM couplings have been recently developed and successfully adopted in different applications still, an efficient parallelization for such a numerical method represents an open issue. Despite its ability to provide grid convergent solutions and more accurate results than standard CFD–DEM couplings, this young numerical method requires good parallel performances in order to be applied to large-scale problems and, therefore, extend its range of application. The parallelization strategy here proposed aims to take advantage of the enhanced complexity of a dual-grid coupling to gain more flexibility in the domain partitioning while keeping a low inter-process communication cost. In particular, it allows avoiding inter-process communication between CFD and DEM software and still allows adopting complex partitioning strategies thanks to an optimized grid-based communication. It is shown how the parallelized multiscale coupling holds all its natural advantages over a mono-scale coupling and can also have better parallel performance. Three benchmark cases are presented to assess the accuracy and performance of the strategy. It is shown how the proposed method allows maintaining good parallel performance when operated over 1000 processes. •A new parallel multiscale dual-grid CFD–DEM coupling is proposed.•It produces grid convergent solutions with a good parallel performance.•It is based on an efficient parallel grid-based inter-scale communication.•Scalability over a thousand of processes is shown.•It is of general applicability.