Add hemisphere shell particle cloud packing

[BCKim55]

Description

Adds a hemisphere-shell particle cloud packing option for immersed-boundary particle clouds.

This introduces particle_cloud(i)%packing_method = 3, which randomly places spherical/circular IBM particles inside a hemisphere-shell region while enforcing:

• inner and outer shell-radius clearance,
• hemisphere plane clearance,
• bounding-box clearance,
• particle-particle non-overlap using the existing spatial hash approach.

This also adds shell_inner_radius and shell_outer_radius particle cloud parameters. The local verification example was removed from this PR to avoid introducing a new golden test in the same change.

Type of change

• New feature

Testing

• ./mfc.sh format
• ./mfc.sh validate examples/*/case.py
• ./mfc.sh validate examples/3D_mibm_particle_cloud_hemi_shell/case.py
• ./mfc.sh run examples/3D_mibm_particle_cloud_hemi_shell/case.py --clean --no-debug

Additional local checks:

• Verified generated ib_state_0.dat particle positions.
• Confirmed no shell-boundary violations.
• Confirmed no particle overlap violations.
• Confirmed VF 0.2 succeeds with min_spacing=0.02.
• Confirmed VF 0.3 succeeds when min_spacing=0.0.

Checklist

• I added or updated tests for new behavior
• I updated documentation if user-facing behavior changed

GPU changes (expand if you modified src/simulation/)

• GPU results match CPU results
• Tested on NVIDIA GPU or AMD GPU

[wilfonba]

I don't think this is implemented quite right. The example you added highlights this fact. It defines a hemispherical particle cloud using a cubic domain. I think instead you should add a particle_cloud(i)%geometry variable, and then treat the particle cloud more like the fluid patches are treated. Also, a hemispherical shell is not a packing method in the same way that rejection sampling and lattice placement are packing methods, so using the existing acking_method variable for this isn't the right thing to do. You can place particles in a hemispherical shell using either rejection sampling, lattice placement, or some other packing method that's not implemented yet.

Edit: Your s_particle_cloud_random_hemi_shell routine appears to do rejection sampling, which adds to the confusion of what packing_method means.

[BCKim55]

Thanks Ben, that makes sense. I agree that the hemisphere shell should be treated as a particle-cloud geometry rather than a packing method.

I’ll refactor this so that particle_cloud(i)%packing_method remains responsible for the placement algorithm, e.g. rejection sampling or lattice, and add a separate particle_cloud(i)%geometry option for the cloud shape. Then the current hemisphere-shell implementation will become the rejection-sampling path for geometry = hemisphere shell, while unsupported combinations such as hemisphere-shell lattice packing can error out explicitly for now.

I’ll also remove or adjust the example so it does not imply that a cubic domain defines the hemispherical cloud.

[danieljvickers]

num_dims < 3 peferred in general. This likely does not affect things, but num_dims is a case-optimization parameter, and therefore the compiler can optimize this away if you make it a check on num_dims.

[BCKim55]

Updated this to use num_dims < 3 instead of checking p == 0.

[danieljvickers]

This seems like a lot fo compute for your QOI. You do not use the [xyz]dir parameter at all after computing it. Again, either use it or do not computed.

[danieljvickers]

That said, you using a probability distribution function to weight your random seed is correct here. Just you are computing redundant quantities here that seem pointless.

[BCKim55]

1. Thanks for catching that! I completely missed that [xyz]dir wasn't being used later on. I've removed the redundant calculation to save compute.

2. Thanks for confirming the PDF logic. I've cleaned up all the redundant quantities you mentioned to optimize the compute.

[BCKim55]

Thanks for the feedback. I updated the hemisphere-shell path to remove the redundant box-bounds logic and rely on the shell radii for the placement region. I also changed the dimensionality checks to use num_dims < 3 and removed the extra direction variables in the 3D sampling path.

[BCKim55]

Updated this to use num_dims < 3 instead of checking p == 0.

[BCKim55]

1. Thanks for catching that! I completely missed that [xyz]dir wasn't being used later on. I've removed the redundant calculation to save compute.

2. Thanks for confirming the PDF logic. I've cleaned up all the redundant quantities you mentioned to optimize the compute.

[sbryngelson]

Request changes

1. Missing regression coverage. This PR adds the hemisphere-shell execution path but removes the local example and adds no test fixture. The existing particle-cloud case is box-only, so CI never executes geometry = 2. Please add a small deterministic 2D or 3D case that checks generated particle positions for shell/plane clearance and non-overlap.

2. Documentation was not updated. docs/documentation/case.md does not document geometry, shell_inner_radius, or shell_outer_radius, and its length_[x,y,z] description is inaccurate for geometry = 2, where those extents are ignored. Please update the Particle Clouds section accordingly.