An efficient solution for hazardous geophysical flows simulation using GPUs

The movement of poorly sorted material over steep areas constitutes a hazardous environmental problem. Computational tools help in the understanding and predictions of such landslides. The main drawback is the high computational effort required for obtaining accurate numerical solutions due to the high number of cells involved in the calculus. In order to overcome this problem, this work proposes the use of GPUs for decreasing significantly the CPU simulation time. The numerical scheme implemented in GPU is based on a finite volume scheme and it was validated in previous work with exact solutions and experimental data. The computational cost time obtained with the Graphical Hardware technology, GPU, is compared against Single-Core (sequential) and Multi-Core (parallel) CPU implementations. The GPU implementation allows to reduce the computational cost time in two orders of magnitude. •A GPU implementation of a FV method for geophysical shallow flows is presented.•The GPU implementation has been performed over unstructured meshes.•The GPU implementation allows to reduce in two orders of magnitude the computational cost.•Real and up-to-date environmental problems are now affordable without the necessity of using coarse meshes.