Hybrid parallelization of the LIGGGHTS open-source DEM code

•An MPI/OpenMP hybrid parallelization was implemented into the LIGGGHTS DEM code.•We present three case studies to illustrate strengths and weaknesses of the approach.•The hybrid parallelization simplifies load balancing and reduces MPI communication.•MPI-only simulations are matched or outperformed by up to 44% in typical test cases.

This work presents our efforts to implement an MPI/OpenMP hybrid parallelization of the LIGGGHTS open-source software package for Discrete Element Methods (DEM). We outline the problems encountered and the solutions implemented to achieve scalable performance using both parallelization models. Three case studies, including two real-world applications with up to 1.5 million particles, were evaluated and demonstrate the practicality of this approach. In these examples, better load balancing and reduced MPI communication led to speed increases of up to 44% compared to MPI-only simulations.

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