DualSPHysics-INL is an extended adaptation of the DualSPHysics open-source Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) simulation software based on DualSPHysics release version 5.0.1. Source code was modified from src_mphase/DSPH_v5.0_NNewtonian.
Why DualSPHysics-INL? While DualSPHysics was developed for the simulation of fluid flow, DualSPHysics-INL was developed to simulate the flow of granular materials, such as soils and biomass feedstocks. In DualSPHysics-INL, a critical state soil mechanics based G-B hypoplastic constitutive model (Gudehus & Bauer) was adopted that has the capability to simulate granular materials of a wide range of mechanical responses. The code adopts a momentum-based boundary condition that is able to sustain impact loading without particles leaking to the outside of the boundaries and can achieve a full range of frictional conditions, including free-slip and no-slip. The code adopts GPU-acceleration, enabling fast computation for complex problems. The following examples provide a glance of applications that the DualSPHysics-INL can simulate!
Screw conveyance Cone penetrating in sands
Biomass flow in hopper
Oedometer compression Vane Shearing
Static Angle of Repose
Since the code is based on DualSPHysics, most of the guidances for installation, pre- and post-processing and running from DualSPHysics Wiki still applies to DualSPHysics-INL. Please follow that Wiki link on how to install DualSPHysics-INL on either Linux, Windows or MacOS systems. Given that the code DualSPHysics-INL was developed and tested in Linux environment, a detailed installation guide using the Linux environment as an example is provided in the following. Remember that ChatGPT or other AI chatbox will be very helpful to answer installation related questions.
Not like the original DualSPHysics that supports both CPU and CPU&GPU computation, the current version of DualSPHysics-INL only supports CPU&GPU computation, thus, an Nvidia CUDA-enabled GPU card on a computer or cluster is required to run the code. To check if your computer has an NVIDIA CUDA-enabled GPU, type lspci | grep -i nvidia, it will show the NVIDIA GPU model if found.
A C++ compiler (for example gcc) and the CUDA compiler (nvcc) need to be installed. To check if they are installed, type gcc --version and nvcc --version. Version information will be displayed if they are installed already. The CUDA compiler can be downloaded from the CUDA Toolkit website.
Linux Ubuntu 20.04 LTS + cuda-10.1 + gcc-9.4.0
Linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (TO BE TESTED)
Linux Rocky 8.10 + cuda-12.2 + gcc-12.3.0 (INL Sawtooth cluster)
Option 1a. For users: git clone https://github.com/IdahoLabResearch/DualSPHysics-INL.git
Option 1b. For users: wget https://github.com/IdahoLabResearch/DualSPHysics-INL.zip
Option 2. For developers: git clone [email protected]:IdahoLabResearch/DualSPHysics-INL.git
Navigate to the repository folder DualSPHysics-INL/src-INL/source
cd DualSPHysics-INL/src-INL/source
Open Makefile (use such as emacs, nano, vim) and make modifications as needed:
emacs Makefile
Inside Makefile, if your gcc version is > 5.0, make sure USE_GCC5=YES.
For compiling to the release version, set USE_DEBUG=NO, for the debugging version, set it to YES and refer to the “Developer” section below.
Make sure COMPILE_CHRONO, COMPILE_CHRONO_OMP, COMPILE_WAVEGEN and COMPILE_MOORDYN are all set to NO since our current version of DualSPHysics-INL do not have the capability to couple with these functions.
Set the name and directory of the compiled file in EXECNAME and EXECS_DIRECTORY as desired.
In "CUDA selection” section, change CUDAVER=120 to be compatible with the cuda version installed on your computer and change the corresponding === CUDA toolkit directory === and === Select GPU architectures ===sections to be compatible with your CUDA version.
After modifying the Makefile, save it and run (note if it's on cluster, use module load to load proper versions of gcc and cuda first):
make -j<number_of_thread> -f Makefile (e.g. make -j4 -f Makefile)
If the compilation is successful, an executable with the name defined in Makefile EXECNAME should appear in the folder defined in EXECS_DIRECTORY.
Navigate to the folder DualSPHysics-INL/examples/test_AOR. Make sure the input file test_AOR_Def.xml exists. This is a static angle of repose test case with a small amount of particles that can be computed very fast, but you can also try all other cases in the /examples/ folder.
Run pre_processing.sh:
bash pre_processing.sh
A folder test_AOR_out should be generated, within which a file test_AOR.xml and a test_AOR.bi4 should be generated, along with several vtk outputs that can be checked using Paraview or other similar software.
If the pre-processing generates expected files, go ahead and run the main code:
bash main_run.sh (Note, in clusters, this command should be run in the batch mode, e.g. in INL Sawtooth cluster, type qsub mainRun_sawtoothGPU.pbs, a template of the 'mainRun_sawtoothGPU.pbs' is attached in the folder but for a specific cluster, follows its user guide. If you start an interactive session instead, make sure you have requested GPU resources and you can run bash main_run.sh just like on your local computer).
After the main simulation is completed, a series of data should be generated in a /test_AOR/data folder, post-processing the data by:
bash post_processing.sh
A series of vtk or txt or csv files will be outputted in the /test_AOR/particles folder.
You can also combine the pre-processing, main run and post-processing together by running:
bash Run.sh
However, it is always a good practice to run the pre-processing first and check if the initial status generated is correct before running the main simulation.
Most of the user guide from DualSPHysics Wiki still applies to our DualSPHysics-INL solver. Below we only emphasize on changes from the original Wiki documentation.
• Granular flow (e.g. soils, biomass materials)
• Output stresses, density, void ratio, velocity etc. of SPH nodes
• Able to compute reaction forces and toruqe on boundaries
• Able to assign free-slip, no-slip and Coulomb friction based frictional boundary conditions.
The original DualSPHysics code developed for fluid flow has multiple options such as coupling with other physical engines as described in DualSPHysics Wiki. However, our current version of DualSPHysics-INL for granular flow has not adopted its full range of functions. The limitations are pointed below:
- The code is only developed for CPU&GPU computing, a cuda GPU-enabled and properly configured computer must be used. Pure CPU compution was not developed. DualSPHysics-INL does not allow couple with Chrono, MoorDyn+, Discrete Element Modeling (DEM) and wave propagation models.
- The current code cannot be used for 2D simulations or with any symmetric boundary conditions. Only one granular phase is allowed at this point.
- The floating scheme cannot be enabled. This means that a boundary can be assigned a fixed condition or designated motion and the reaction force from granular particles on the boundary can be computed, however, free motion of boundaries upon interaction with granular particles is not allowed.
Deteailed explanation of the implemented G-B hypoplastic model and the free-slip/no-slip/frictional boundary conditions please refer to the publicatoin.
Pre-processing relies on the GenCase binary file located at /bin/linux/GenCase_linux64 to read a <casename>_Def.xml and generate files ready for running in DualSPHysics-INL. The bash file for pre-processing is straightforward. Refer to pre-processing.sh in any example on how to modify it.
DesignSPHysics provides a convinent way to automatically generate <casename>_Def.xml. However, it is based on the original DualSPHysics solver and necessary modification is required on the generated <casename>_Def.xml before running DualSPHysics-INL.
We use the file /examples/test_AOR/test_AOR_def.xml as an example to guide how to define the intput file. All the values other than dimensionless parameters are in SI units. XML_GUIDE_v5.0.pdf and XML_GUIDE_MDBC.pdf located in /doc/guides are user guides from the original DualSPHysics. There are the bases on how to generate the "_Def.xml" file.
<constantsdef>
<rhop0>: bulk density of the granular material.
<hswl> <gamma> <speedsystem> <coefsound>: they are used for the original fluid model not for DualSPHysics-INL. Keep them unchanged as they will not be used.
<speedsound>: make sure the option auto is set to "false" and enter a speed of sound value mannually. Set it to true will overwrite the input speed of sound value and calcuate from <hswl> <gamma> <speedsystem> <coefsound>, which is not correct.
coefh: kernel size
<h> <b>: they will not be used. Keep them as they are.
<massbound> <massfluid>: keep them to "auto=true" as the mass of individual SPH particles will be computed automatically.
<geometry>
Follows XML_GUIDE_v5.0.pdf. The key is to set the normal direction of boundary particles correctly. This will be covered in the Defining Normal section.
<motion>
Follows XML_GUIDE_v5.0.pdf.
constitutive model
Two constitutive models are implemented in DualSPHysics-INL, G-B hypoplastic model and linear elasticity. They are defined in <execution><special><hypoplasticity> and <execution><special><elasticity>.
<hypoplasticity>:
keep <phase mkfluid="0"> since only one material phase is allowed.
<visco> is the coefficient of artificial viscosity used for mitigating numerical instability. Along with the speed of sounds <csound>, the magnitude of numerical instability dissipation is proportional to the multiplicaiton of these two parameters. Note there is also a <speedsound> defined in <casedef><constantsdef> and a <Visco> defined in <parameters>, but theese two are used to define time step size.
<rhop> is bulk density of the granular material.
The G-B hypoplastic constitutive model (Gudehus & Bauer) is based on critical state soil mechancis. The model has 8 parameters, granulate hardness <hypoplasticity>.
<Hypo_initStres_x> <Hypo_initStres_y> <Hypo_initStres_z> defining the initial stresses in x, y and z directions for all the particle nodes. Ideally they should all be set to zero but since the G-B hypoplastic model is for cohesionless material, assigning a small enough compressional stress value (e.g. -10 Pa) will not alter the result and at the same time prevent tensile stress been generated during explicit time marching.
<Hypo_rhoparticle> is the solid density of the material.
<Hypo_voidRatio> initial void ratio of the material, please set it to Hypo_rhoparticle/rhop - 1 as void ratio, bulk density and solid density are not independent. In the code, void ratio is updated in the main loop and bulk density is computed from this relationship. In the future, we will remove the bulk density as an input parameter to remove the confusion.
<Hypo_wallfriction> frictional coefficient. The value will not matter if <SlipMode> in <parameters> is not set to "5".
<phasetype> should be kept as "0".
<elasticity> (refer to the example in /examples/SlidingBlock/SlidingBlock_Def.xml):
<lameparm1> and <lameparm2> are the lame first and second parameters.
Other parameters are similar to what defined in <hypoplasticity>. Note that for linear elastic material, the speed of sound can be theoretically determined. Refer to the comment in <csound>.
''
<parameter key="Boundary">: set it to 2. Our boundary is not based on the mDBC method but it runs following the similar code structure.
<parameter key="SlipMode">: choose only from "5" , "6" and "7" for frictional slip, no-slip and free-slip conditions.
<parameter key="RheologyTreatment">: choose only value="2".
<parameter key="StepAlgorithm">: choose only value="2".
<parameter key="VelocityGradientType">: choose only value="2".
<parameter key="Kernel">: choose only value="2".
<parameter key="ViscoTreatment">: choose value="4" for hypoplasticity and "5" for linear elasticity.
<parameter key="Visco">: coefficient of viscosity used for determing time step.
<parameter key="ViscoBoundFactor">: keep it to "1".
<parameter key="DensityDT/DensityDTvalue/Shifting/ShiftCoef/ShiftTFS">: keep all of them to "0" as the current DualSPHysics-INL is not capable of density diffusion or shifting.
<parameter key="RigidAlgorithm">: keep it to "1".
<parameter key="FtPause">: keep it to "0.0".
<parameter key="DtAllParticles">: keep it to "0".
<parameter key="TimeMax/TimeOut">: to control the time fo the whole simulation and at what time interval the data are outputted.
Defining Normal
There are in general two ways to define boundary particle normal: 1. Automatic normal vectors from actual geometry and 2. Explicit normal vectors definition in DualSPHysics configuration as explained in /dpc/guides/XML_GUIDE_MDBC.pdf. These two methods can be used together in a single case.
- Automatic normal vectors from actual geometry
The idea is to create a guiding surface besides the actual boundary particles to direct normal orientations. When the geometry is simple, it is possible to define the surface directly in xml. For example, in ConePenetration_Def.xml, a container filled with boundary particle is created by:
<setmkbound mk="4" />
<setfrdrawmode auto="true" />
<drawcylinder radius="0.4" mask="2" objname="container">
<point x="0.0" y="0.0" z="0.0" />
<point x="0.0" y="0.0" z="0.9" />
<layers vdp="0,1" />
</drawcylinder>
Note the keyword "layers" means that two layers of boundary particles are created: layer "0" is at the designated position and layer "1" is outside layer "0" with distance "1*$dp$".
Then the guiding surface is created by first: ''' # only generate the surface, not real particle points ''' Here layer "-1.25" means the surface is created inside layer "0".
After running pre_processing.sh, one can check the file ConePenetration_GeometryShapes.vtk and ConePenetration_Bound.vtk. Indeed, after checking these two files, the surface and boundary particles are created at desired positions. Note the arrows in figure denote normal directions. In this case, particles at the container bottom has normal pointing up and at the container surface pointing inside.
If the geometry is complicated, it is better to convert the geometry into a stl files and input to xml. The stl geometry of the guiding surface should be slightly larger or smaller than the geometry that is going to be filled with particles.
If the opposite direction is desired, change <setnormalinvert invert="true" /> to "false".
When the main running loop is initiated, a file called CfgInit_Normals.vtk is created. It is always a good practice to check this file which will help confirm generated normal directions. The figure below plots the normal directions in Y direction. Do not worry if the normals are not of the same magnitude. They will all be converted to unit length vectors inside the code automatically unless (
- Explicit normal vectors definition in DualSPHysics configuration
In DualSPHysics-INL, explicit normal vectors can be defined in 5 categories: set, plane, curves, cylinder and spheres.
Normals are defined in <execution><special><initialize> following the format:
2.1 Set
Assign boundary particles under the designated
<boundnormal_set mkbound="1"> # choose mk as other number as needed
<normal x="0" y="0" z="1" />
<corner v="false" />
</boundnormal_set>
When "corner" is chosen to "false", the normal direction is defined normally; when it is set ot "true", normal is defined using the "hybrid contact method" as introduced by Zhan et al., 2020.
2.2 Plane
All particles are assigned a same normal direction. This is essential the same with bondnormal_set.
<boundnormal_plane mkbound="1">
<point auto="true" />
<normal x="0" y="0" z="1" />
<maxdisth v="2.0" />
<corner v="false" />
</boundnormal_plane>
2.3 Curve
Normals are following the direction of a hollow cylinder with its axis alongs center1 - center2 direction. Set "inverse" to true or false to reverse the normal direction.
<boundnormal_curved mkbound="1">
<center1 x="0" y="0" z="1" />
<center2 x="0" y="0" z="-1" />
<inverse v="false" />
<corner v="false" />
</boundnormal_curved>
2.4 Cylinder
Normal defined with "cylinder" is similar to "curved" but also with two caps.
<boundnormal_cylinder mkbound="1">
<center1 x="0" y="0" z="1" />
<center2 x="0" y="0" z="-1" />
<radius v="5.8" />
<inside v="true" /> # "true": solid cylinder; "false": container cylinder
<maxdisth v="2.0" /> # maxium distance from each boundary particle to boundary limit allowed to compute the normal
<corner v="false" />
</boundnormal_cylinder>
2.5 Sphere
To define normals according to spherical geometry.
<boundnormal_sphere mkbound="1">
<center1 x="0" y="0" z="1" />
<radius v="1.2" />
<inside v="true" /> # boundary particles inside or outside the sphere
<maxdisth v="2.0" />
<corner v="false" />
</boundnormal_sphere>
post_processing.sh
Follow doc/help/PartVTK_Help.out and PartVTKOut_Help.out on how to modify the post-processing code. Also refer to the examples/ folder.
For material particles modeled in hypoplasticity, DualSPHysics-INL is able to output two more new variables: the normal component of stress tensor +Sigma, and void ratio from the keyword +Void. For material particles modeled in elasticity, +Void is not allowed.
For boundary particles regardless of hypoplastic or elastic models, a new variable +Force is allowed which computes the reactive forces act upon each individual boundary particle with an area of *_Def.xml. Thus, the total reactive force of a surface is the summation of all the reactive forces from the individual boundary particles on the surface. The normal reactive stress mapping can be computed as the reactive forces from the individual boundary particles normalized by
Note that when outputting the data for a specific boundary, the "mk" in post_processing.sh should be "mk+10" from *_Def.xml to refer to a same boundary denoted in the xml. For example, in the Oedometer case, the following line in post_processing.sh:
${partvtk} -dirin ${diroutdata} -savecsv ${dirout2}/PartBound -onlymk:13 -vars:+Force,-rhop,-type,-vel,-idp
Refers to the base plate defined as <setmkbound mk="3" /> in Oedometer_Def.xml.
DualSPHysics_Bound_ForceTorque.py
DualSPHysics_Bound_ForceTorque.py is used to compute reactive forces and torque on a specific boundary by reading the PartBound*.csv data generated from post_processing. Modificatoin in the function "inputData" may be needed as the columns defined in your csv file could be different. You may also modify the code to enable parallel processing a variety of files at a same time.
An example usage would be:
python3 DualSPHysics_Bound_ForceTorque calculation.py -path examples/Oedometer/Oedometer_out -ForceCal True -TorqueCal True -Mk 13 -AxisP1 0 0 0 -AxisP2 0 0 1
When -ForceCal is set to True, the reactive forces will be outputted.
When -TorqueCal is set to True, the reactive torque along a reference axis defined by its two endpoints AxisP1 and AxisP2will be outputted. When -TorqueCal is set to False, arbitrary input of AxisP1 and AxisP2 are still needed but they are not used and torque will not be outputted.
MassFlowRate.py
This python code located in examples/HopperFlow is used to compute mass flow rate. To be specific, this code computes the mass rate of particles flow to the outside of the domain. Thus, an outlet should be placed close to the domain boundary defined in *_Def.xml.
In post_processing.sh, the following line should be added:
${partvtkout} -dirin ${diroutdata} -savecsv ${dirout2}/PartFluidOut
In MassFlowRate.py, adjust the "Massfluid" to the mass of individual material particle. This information can be found in the generated *_out/*.xml file. Also adjust "PartTimeInterval" to the same with "TimeOut".
Theory of the code / Static Angle of Repose of biomass materials / Oedometer compression of biomass materials:
• Zhao, Y., Jin, W., Klinger, J., Dayton, D. C., & Dai, S. (2023). SPH modeling of biomass granular flow: Theoretical implementation and experimental validation. Powder Technology, 426, 118625.
Other implementation used DualSPHysics-INL:
Biomass flow in hopper and auger:
• Zhao, Y., Ikbarieh, A., Jin, W., Klinger, J., Saha, N., Dayton, D. C., & Dai, S (2024). SPH modeling of biomass granular flow: engineering application in hopper and auger. ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering. 12(10), 4213-4223.
A fully-connected Artificial Neuron Network (ANN) model for biomass hopper flow:
• Ikbarieh, A., Jin, W., Zhao, Y., Saha, N., Klinger, J., Xia, Y., & Dai, S (2025). Machine learning assisted cross-scale hopper design for flowing biomass granular materials (ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, Under Review)
(to be added)
Although we made a substantial amount of modification from the original DualSPHysics-v5.0.1 code, its main structure mostly remained unchanged. Thus, developeres may still refer to the presentation Developing on DualSPHysics: exampels on code modification and extension by O. García-Feal given at the 4th DualSPHysics Users Workshop 2018 on how to add new functionalities to DualSPHysics.
To compile the code into debugging version, set USE_DEBUG=YES in Makefile and run make -f Makefile. An excutable file named "<*_debug>" will be generated in the same source folder.
Pre-processing the testing case and copy the generated files <casename>.xml and <casename>.bi4 to the source folder. If stl geometry files are also needed, copy them to the same folder as well.
A CUDA-enabled debugger is needed. CUDA-GDB is used as an example below.
Enter the debugging mode by typing cuda-gdb --args <*_debug> -gpu <casename>. Documentation on how to use cuda-gdb can be found on its website.