Molecular structural mechanics approach to carbon nanotubes on graphics processing units

A molecular structural mechanics approach to carbon nanotubes on graphics processing units (GPUs) is reported. As a powerful parallel and relatively low cost processor, the GPU is used to accelerate the computations of the molecular structural mechanics approach. The data structures, matrix-vector multiplication algorithm, texture reduction algorithm, and ICCG method on the GPU are presented. The computations for Young's moduli of carbon nanotubes by the molecular structural mechanics approach on the GPU show its accuracy. The running times of large degree of freedom (DOF) carbon nanotubes, whose DOF is larger than 100,000, on the GPU are compared against those on the CPU, proving the GPU can accelerate the computations of the molecular structural mechanics approach to carbon nanotubes.