The BIT codes are run routinely on supercomputers, made available through PRACE. BIT1, in particular, is an electrostatic Particle-in Cell (PIC) code optimized for plasma edge modelling and incorporating nonlinear plasma, neutral and impurity interactions via Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) collision operators. The repository can be accessed here.
License
Custom
Ownership
IPP
Programming language
C
Architectures
x86
Scalability & Performance
A strong scaling study, using BIT1, was conducted considering two cases: a relatively straightforward simulation of neutral particle ionization due to interaction with electrons, and the formation of a high-density sheath in front of the so-called divertor plates in future magnetic confinement fusion devices. The chart above shows strong scaling up to 19,200 MPI ranks. The Ionization simulation reaches a scaling limit at 2,560 ranks. At this point, there is a relative parallel efficiency of 77% for the Ionization test case and 96% for the Sheath test case.
