Water Resources Research Act Program

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Details for Project ID 2021CA001S

HEC-RAS 2D Graphics Processor Unit (GPU) Solver

Institute: California
USGS Grant Number:
Year Established: 2021 Start Date: 2021-10-01 End Date: 2023-09-30
Total Federal Funds: $339,805 Total Non-Federal Funds: Not available

Principal Investigators: Doug Parker

Project Summary: The US Army’s Corps of Engineers has developed software (the Hydrologic Engineering Center's Analysis System, “HEC-RAS”) to study and simulate river dynamics. HEC-RAS currently targets traditional central processor units (CPUs). In this work we aim to implement HEC-RAS on graphics processor units (GPUs), a massively parallel processor that has recently become ubiquitous in modern scientific and data-intensive computing. GPUs offer the promise of better performance, but are challenging to program. This work will develop techniques for implementing HEC-RAS solvers on the GPU, with specific focus on implementing shallow-water and diffusion-wave solvers, integrating with CPU solvers for hydraulic structures, and supporting unstructured mesh and subgrid data structures currently used in the CPU HEC-RAS implementation.