UltraWave: An Open-source Multi-GPU Full-wave Simulator for Acoustic and Elastic Wave Scattering in 3-D Heterogeneous...

Area of Science:

• Computational physics
• Biomedical engineering
• Acoustics

Background:

• Accurate 3-D ultrasound simulation is vital for medical imaging and machine learning.
• High-resolution simulations face computational challenges.
• Existing tools lack multi-GPU acceleration for complex wave propagation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop UltraWave, an open-source, multi-GPU-accelerated 3-D full-wave simulator.
• To enable efficient simulation of acoustic and elastic wave scattering in heterogeneous media.
• To provide standardized validation tools for numerical simulators.

Main Methods:

• Developed UltraWave with capabilities for inhomogeneity, elastic propagation, frequency-dependent absorption, and PMLs.
• Created a companion code suite for analytical validation of scattered waveforms.
• Benchmarked UltraWave against k-Wave using 3-D elastic scattering scenarios.

Main Results:

• UltraWave achieved equivalent accuracy to k-Wave in 3-D elastic scattering simulations.
• Runtime was reduced from 8 hours (k-Wave, single GPU) to 20 minutes (UltraWave, 4 GPUs).
• Demonstrated UltraWave's computational efficiency and scalability.

Conclusions:

• UltraWave is a powerful, scalable tool for high-resolution wave propagation and scattering simulations.
• It addresses computational demands in biomedical ultrasound applications.
• Offers significant speed-up for complex 3-D simulations.