When engineers test how air moves around a car or aircraft, the underlying physics changes moment to moment, making this kind of simulation particularly demanding to run. A blog by Dassault Systèmes explains that its SIMULIA PowerFLOW software addresses this using the Lattice Boltzmann Method, representing fluid behavior through particle distribution functions on a computational lattice. Because these calculations are evaluated locally at each lattice point, the method suits massively parallel computation.
The article describes a shift from conventional CPU-based HPC toward GPU-based computing, with a newer release adding multi-GPU support for large-scale simulations, while noting results remain consistent across CPU and GPU solvers, and the software integrates with the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. This GPU-based approach is presented as one option among several available to teams working on fluid simulation today.
Image courtesy: Dassault Systèmes