Parallel simulations of pore-scale flow through porous media

Smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) is a versatile technique which can be applied to single and multiphase flow through porous media. The versatility of SPH is offset by its computational expense which limits the practicability of SPH for large problems involving low Reynolds number flow. A parallel pore-scale numerical model based on SPH is described for modeling flow phenomena in porous media. Aspects of SPH which complicate parallelization are emphasized. The speed of the method is demonstrated to be proportional to the number of processors for test cases where load balance was achieved. The parallel algorithm permits the application of SPH to more complicated porous media problems than previously considered. For such problems, best performance is achieved when several soil grains are simulated by each processor. Finally, future applications of the method and possible extensions are discussed.