CPU-GPU-coupled acceleration method for point flux calculation in Monte Carlo particle transport

Abstract

In Monte Carlo particle transport simulations, point flux tallying is a variance reduction technique that performs well with small detectors and finds broad application in source-detector problems and local point dose calculations. However, its use in large-scale point flux tallying computation adds substantial computational time. To address this issue, we propose a CPU-GPU-coupled acceleration method, which separates the complex logic and computationally intensive parts of particle transport calculation and assigns them to the CPU and GPU, respectively. This proposed method greatly enhances the efficiency of large-scale point flux tallies, providing significant convenience for subsequent dose calculations and other related steps. We validated our method by comparing the performance of a pure CPU program with our CPU-GPU accelerated program using the NUREG/CR-6115 PWR benchmark problem. The results indicate identical outcomes for photon point flux estimation, with the accelerated program being ~50 times faster.