Modeling of Geophysical Flows through GPUFLOW

Abstract

We present a new model called GPUFLOW for the modeling and simulation of geophysical flows. GPUFLOW, which is based on the cellular automaton paradigm, features a physical model for the thermal and rheological evolution of lava flows (including temperature-dependent emissivity and cooling by radiation and air convection), support for debris flows without thermal dependency, a parallel implementation on graphic processing units (GPUs), and a simpler and computationally more efficient solution to the grid bias problem. Here, we describe the physical–mathematical model implemented in GPUFLOW and estimate the influence of input data on the flow emplacement through different synthetic test cases. We also perform a validation using two real applications: a debris flow that occurred in July 2006 in the Dolomites (Italy) and the December 2018 lava flow from the Etna volcano. GPUFLOW’s reliability prediction is accomplished by fitting the simulation with the actual flow fields, obtaining average values between ~55% and 75%.

Keywords

• physical modeling
• cellular automata
• graphic processing unit
• Etna volcano
• Dolomites