Significance: The relatively small human birth canal has arisen from an evolutionary trade-off between multiple antagonistic selective forces. We present evidence that a large pelvic floor is disadvantageous for maintaining continence and supporting the weight of the inner organs and the fetus through multiple finite element analyses of pelvic floor models varying in size and thickness. An increase in pelvic floor size led to a disproportionately large deflection as well as higher tissue stretches and stresses. Increased pelvic floor thickness considerably reduced deflection by increasing stiffness. However, as a side effect, it increases the intra-abdominal pressure necessary for childbirth, thus reflecting another evolutionary trade-off affecting not only the size but also the thickness of the pelvic floor.

In this paper, we describe a new scalable and modular material point method (MPM) code developed for solving large-scale problems in continuum mechanics. The MPM is a hybrid Eulerian-Lagrangian approach, which uses both moving material points and computational nodes on a background mesh. The MPM has been successfully applied to solve large-deformation problems such as landslides, failure of slopes, concrete flows, etc. Solving these large-deformation problems result in the material points actively moving through the mesh. Developing an efficient parallelisation scheme for the MPM code requires dynamic load-balancing techniques for both the material points and the background mesh. This paper describes the data structures and algorithms employed to improve the performance and portability of the MPM code.