Revolutionizing Radiation Hardening using GPU Acceleration in Ansys Charge Plus
Topic:
Revolutionizing Radiation Hardening using GPU Acceleration in Ansys Charge Plus
Presenter:
Kevin-Druis Merenda, EMA Principal Scientist I and Lead Product Manager
Zach Stevens, EMA Scientist III
Abstract:
Designing a spacecraft requires detailed analysis of effects from high-energy space radiation environments. High-energy particles can penetrate deep within electronics, causing electronic noise, degradation, malfunction, and failure. Understanding and accounting for these effects is critical to mitigating risk before a spacecraft ever enters orbit. Before 2026 R1, Ansys Charge Plus users already had access to our GPU-accelerated raytracing method and to our forward Monte-Carlo (MC) particle transport on CPU, which typically required access to high-performance computing for complex designs.
Electro Magnetic Applications, Inc. (EMA) is revolutionizing its approach to radiation hardening through GPU-accelerated forward MC particle transport in Charge Plus using NVIDIA’s RTX capabilities. This new solution enables simulation speedups on the order of thousands of times faster than on CPU. While other approaches such as reverse MC are available in the industry, the speedup of the GPU acceleration by EMA is transforming the solution for forward MC simulations. This acceleration gives users the capability to model full systems, such as PCBs within full satellite bodies. With the new flux tally method for secondary particles, multi-scale highly complex designs can be considered in your analysis workflow, changing the landscape of radiation hardening.
As of 2026 R1, the MC GPU Charge Transport solution models the explicit physics of photons and electrons in the simulation, providing detailed statistical reports on quantities such as dose, linear energy transfer, track length, and charge deposition. We retained the same physics kernels as our CPU-based code. This speedup in simulation time allows designers to retrieve detailed results using explicit physics modeling with accelerated turnaround time on a desktop workstation, enabling rapid design modifications to protect against dangerous ionizing radiation. Proton transport is expected for 2027 R1, and integration with the TD-FEM for electrodynamics will follow soon after. This GPU acceleration of the MC particle transport is one-of-a-kind and has not been accomplished before in the industry.
This webinar will explore the background of the GPU accelerated workflow, then delve into a live demo of the capabilities, showcasing the game-changing speedup of the workflow in real time.
