Multi-GPU Material Point Method Solver for Landslide Simulation

We present a high-performance Material Point Method (MPM) numerical solver for simulating the landslide run-out process with high resolution. The solver has been adapted to run on multi-GPU platforms. The current version is backend-agnostic, operating efficiently across various CPU and GPU hardware from different vendors, utilizing the same codebase. We evaluate multiple performance metrics and ensure minimal data synchronization between different devices at each iteration. We validate the solver's accuracy by comparing the simulation results of an aluminum-bar collapse with the corresponding experimental outcomes. Consistency is observed between numerical and experimental results for the free and failure surfaces. The results also indicate favorable performance scalability in high-resolution models, significantly enhancing computational efficiency. Further, we simulate the slumping mechanic problem with a simplified landslide geometry. The results show that the shear band develops within the high plastic strain area. The failure surface is in good agreement with the solution reported by Huang^[1] et al., demonstrating that MPM can accurately handle failure and large deformation problems as they occur in landslides. Our multi-GPU implementation using MPI makes it possible to perform large-scale simulations that enable to tackle research in the field of geotechnical engineering.

References:
[1]. Huang, Peng, Shun-li Li, Hu Guo, and Zhi-ming Hao. “Large Deformation Failure Analysis of the Soil Slope Based on the Material Point Method.” Computational Geosciences 19, no. 4 (August 2015): 951–63. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10596-015-9512-9.