Numerical modeling of dam-break flood through intricate city layouts including underground spaces using GPU-based SPH method

This paper applies the meshfree Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method with Graphical Processing Unit (GPU) parallel computing technique to investigate the highly complex 3-D dam-break flow in urban areas including underground spaces. Taking the advantage of GPUs parallel computing techniques, simulations involving more than 107 particles can be achieved. We use a virtual geometric plane boundary to handle the outermost solid wall in order to save considerable video card memory for the GPU computing. To evaluate the accuracy of the new GPU-based SPH model, qualitative and quantitative comparison to a real flooding experiment is performed and the results of a numerical model based on Shallow Water Equations (SWEs) is given with good accuracy. With the new GPU-based SPH model, the effects of the building layouts and underground spaces on the propagation of dam-break flood through an intricate city layout are examined.