Parallel strategies of front-tracking method for simulation of multiphase flows

Parallel computation was implemented for multiphase flow simulation of droplet collision using a front-tracking method. Various parallel interfaces were tested, i.e., MPI. OpenMP, and a hybrid of them. It was found that when the array size was comparatively small, OpenMP provided a more efficient platform for the simulation because of faster communication through the hardware memories. If the array size became larger than a critical magnitude, however, MPI could facilitate the computation due to outweighing operation of CPU instead of inter-networking communication. As a consequence, the coupled algorithm using both platforms would be effective as the array size was moderately large. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.