Install the GPU module

[TOC]

Chrono::Gpu is an optional module that enables a GPU solver specialized for simulating large systems of granular materials with a penalty-based Discrete Element Method.

Features

The GPU module allows users to construct a dynamic system consisting of spherical elements

Here are the main features:

• a variety of friction models

  • frictionless (optimized)

  • single-step pseudo history

  • multi-step history tracking

• a variety of explicit time integrators

  • forward Euler

  • extended Taylor

  • centered difference

  • Chung

• single-GPU scaling up to 700 million frictionless elements or 200 million full-history frictional elements

• trianglular meshes (obj format) in order to facilitate co-simulation with a more full-featured solver (such as the ChSystem)

Requirements

• To build applications based on this module you must have CUDA installed

• To run applications based on this module you need

  • an NVIDIA GPU

  • Linux or Windows

• This module has been build/tested on both Windows 11 and Linux (Ubuntu 22.04, Fedora 40, and Arch Linux) with CUDA 12.3 and 12.8.

Building instructions

1. Repeat the instructions for the [full installation](@ref tutorial_install_chrono), but when you see the CMake window, you must add the following steps:

2. Set the CH_ENABLE_MODULE_GPU as 'on', then press 'Configure' (to refresh the variable list)

3. Press 'Configure' again, then 'Generate', and proceed as usual in the installation instructions.

How to use it

• Look at the API section of this module for documentation about classes and functions.

• Look at the C++ source of [demos](@ref tutorial_table_of_content_chrono_gpu) to learn how to use the functions of this module.

MacOS support

This module cannot be built for MacOS, Nvidia GPU hardware and CUDA are unsupported.