Acceleration of microfluidic systems simulation with particle methods using massively parallel processing on GPU cluster

• Grant number: 10/09717-7
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Duration: November 01, 2010 - October 31, 2013
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Electrical Engineering
• Principal Investigator: Luiz Otávio Saraiva Ferreira
• Grantee: Luiz Otávio Saraiva Ferreira
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Engenharia Mecânica (FEM). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: Euclides de Mesquita Neto ; Renato Pavanello

Abstract

Controlled transportation of diminute quantities of uids are essential to chemical laboratories on a chip (Lab-On-a-Chip, or LOC), miniature systems of growing adoptionfor chemical and biochemical analysis, that tends to replace the actual analytical equipments [1]. One of the most important obstacles to the design of uidic microsystemsis the absense of precise and low computational cost models to be used on LOC simulation. This two years long research project includes the development of a simulatorof microuidic microsystems using particle methods of simulation for execution on aGPU cluster, such that a simulation acceleration of 10 times or more, relative to a CPUcluster, be obtained. This project is divided in three main activities: 1) Study of microuidic systems modelling, 2) Development of the simulator of microuidic systems,based on particle methods and targetted to run on a cluster of graphics processing units(GPUs), and 3) Validation of the simulator by comparing its results with well documented results from literature, and the performance of the solver on the GPU cluster tothe performance of the solver on a CPU cluster. This project will make possible moreprecise simulations of labs-on-a-chip and, as consequence, valuable economy of time andmoney on research and development of these devices. (AU)