PySPH: A Python Framework for Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics

PySPH is a Python-based open source parallel framework for Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) simulations. It is distributed under a BSD license. The performance critical parts are implemented in Cython. The framework provides a load balanced, parallel execution of solvers. It is designed to be easy to extend. In this paper we describe the architecture of PySPH and how it can be used.

At it’s core PySPH provides a particle kernel, an SPH kernel and a solver framework. Serial and parallel versions of solvers for some standard problems are also provided. The parallel solver uses mpi4py. We employ a simple but elegant automatic load balancing strategy for the parallelization. Currently, we are able to perform free surface simulations and some gas dynamics simulations. PySPH is still a work in progress and we will discuss our future plans for the project.