Hello, researcher. I have a question. What are the differences between MFIX-EXA and MFIX? Is it that one supports GPU acceleration while the other does not?
They are entirely different codes. The only thing they have in common is the name.
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A little additional information: the original MFiX has been around for several decades and supports more different models for things like viscous drag, thermal conductivity, etc. It also has a few models for non-spherical particles (superquadric, glued sphere). It supports a two-fluid particle model. And as you stated, it does not run on GPU. It also has a well-developed GUI interface and is available as a Conda package with pre-build solvers.
The newer MFIX-Exa is built on top of the AMReX library so it has adaptive mesh refinement (at least for the fluid solver) and runs on GPU. However it has fewer model options compared to MFiX. It does have a GUI but this is a new development and it is not as complete as the “Classic” MFiX GUI. And you have to build it yourself - there is no plan to deliver prebuilt binaries.
You can read more about both codes at: https://mfix.netl.doe.gov/doc/mfix/latest (MFiX) and https://mfix.netl.doe.gov/doc/mfix-exa/guide/latest/ (MFiX-Exa)