PICurv

A parallel, high-performance Particle-In-Cell (PIC) solver with curvilinear coordinate support.

PICurv enables efficient simulation of particle-laden flows in complex geometries by combining state-of-the-art numerical methods with high-performance parallel computing. Perfect for multiphase flow simulations, plasma physics, and particle transport phenomena in curved geometries.

Overview

PICurv is a scientific computing application that combines Eulerian grid-based fluid dynamics with Lagrangian particle tracking using the PIC (Particle-In-Cell) method. It features:

• Parallel execution using MPI and PETSc
• Curvilinear coordinate system support
• Flexible boundary condition handling
• Turbulence modeling (LES/RANS)
• Advanced particle tracking algorithms
• VTK-compatible output for visualization

Prerequisites

• C compiler (GCC/Clang)
• MPI implementation (OpenMPI/MPICH)
• PETSc library
• GNU Make
• Doxygen (for documentation)

Building

1. Set required environment variables:

export PETSC_DIR=/path/to/petsc
export PETSC_ARCH=arch-linux-c-debug

2. Build the project:

# For local development
make

# For cluster deployment
make SYSTEM=cluster

Running a Simulation

1. Create a simulation directory:

mkdir my_simulation
cd my_simulation
mkdir logs results

2. Copy configuration files:

cp -r /path/to/picurv/test/flow_solver_test/config .

3. Link the executable:

ln -s /path/to/picurv/bin/picsolver .

4. Run the simulation:

# Local run with 4 processes
make run NPROCS=4

# Cluster run with 64 processes
make run SYSTEM=cluster NPROCS=64

Directory Structure

├── bin/           # Compiled executables
├── docs/          # Documentation
├── include/       # Header files
├── src/           # Source files
├── test/          # Test cases
└── config.*.mk    # Build configurations

Documentation

Generate documentation using:

make build-docs

View documentation in a web browser:

make open-docs

License

MIT License

Authors

Vishal Indivar Kandala