Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing
The U.S. Department of Energy's Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing (SciDAC)
program brings together the nation's top researchers to tackle challenging scientific problems.
The Office of Advanced Scientific Computing
Research in DOE's Office of Science supports multidisciplinary SciDAC projects aimed at
developing future energy sources, studying global climate change, accelerating research in
designing new materials,improving environmental cleanup methods, and understanding physics
from the tiniest particles to massive supernovae explosions.
Dates, location set for
SciDAC 2009 Conference |
SciDAC 2009 will be held June 14-18, 2009 at the Sheraton San Diego Hotel and Marina.
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Fall Issue of SciDAC Review and SciDAC 2008 proceedings now available online |
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The Fall Issue (#9) of SciDAC Review has an interview with Robert Rosner,
and science features on Nuclear Energy, Molecular Biology, and Geophysical Simulations.
The proceedings of the SciDAC 2008 conference are posted at http://www.iop.org/EJ/toc/1742-6596/125/1.
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Blue Gene/P Simulations Shed Light on Key Process in Type Ia Supernovae
 Results from simulation of a buoyantly-unstable flame front.
Left: flame surface in fully-developed, self-regulated state. Right: volume rendering of vorticity magnitude.
In their study of Type Ia supernovae, among the brightest and most powerful exploding stars in the universe, University of Chicago researchers have addressed a critical question about buoyancy-driven turbulent nuclear combustion, a key physical process in these explosions.
Using the FLASH code on the IBM Blue Gene/P supercomputer at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility, researchers addressed the question, "Is buoyancy-driven turbulent nuclear combustion due primarily to large-scale or small-scale features of the flame surface?" They used more than 40 million processor-hours on the BG/P to run a grid of simulations for different physical conditions. The research team also developed parallel processing tools needed to analyze the large amounts of data produced by the FLASH simulations of buoyancy-driven turbulent nuclear combustion. Preliminary analysis of these results showed that the flame surface is complex at large scales and smooth at small scales.
The results have been published in the SciDAC 2008 conference proceedings. These findings will be used to treat buoyancy-driven turbulent nuclear combustion more accurately in the whole-star, three-dimensional simulations of Type Ia supernovae at the DOE NNSA ASC/Alliance Flash Center, The University of Chicago.
discovery highlights archive
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Steven Ashby named
New PNNL Deputy Director for Science and Technology
Steven Ashby recently joined Pacific Northwest National Laboratory at its new Deputy Director for Science and Technology after spending more than twenty years at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, nearly all of it in the Computation Directorate.
As DDST, Ashby will work with PNNL’s scientific and technical staff to integrate and advance its S&T capabilities on behalf of scientific discovery, energy independence, environmental stewardship, and national security. “These missions, which are not dissimilar to LLNL’s, are important to me and I welcome the opportunity to help shape PNNL’s contributions to them,” Ashby said. He added, “I look forward to working with colleagues throughout the scientific community to forge new partnerships aimed at addressing many of the challenges facing our nation.” Ashby, who has been an advocate for computational science throughout his career, expects to remain active in advanced scientific computing programs, including SciDAC.
scientist highlights archive |
Argonne's Blue Gene/P Named World's Fastest for Open Science
The Blue Gene/P – located at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF) and
known as Intrepid –
is now the fastest supercomputer in the world for open science. Intrepid also ranked third fastest
overall. Both rankings represent Argonne's first appearance in the top five of this definitive list.
While the Blue Gene/P has a peak-performance of 557 Teraflops, Intrepid achieved a speed of
450.3 Teraflops on the Linpack application
used to measure speed for the Top500 rankings.
"Intrepid's speed and power reflect the DOE Office of Science's determined effort to provide the
research and development community with powerful tools that enable them to make innovative and
high-impact science and engineering breakthroughs," said Rick Stevens, associate laboratory
director for computing, environmental and life sciences at Argonne.
"Scientists and society are already benefitting from ALCF resources," said Peter Beckman,
ALCF acting director. "For example, ALCF's Blue Gene resources have allowed researchers to
make major strides in evaluating the molecular and environmental features that may lead to
the clinical diagnosis of Parkinson's disease and Lewy body dementia, as well as to simulate
materials and designs that are important to the safe and reliable use of nuclear energy plants."
Eighty-percent of Intrepid's computing time has been set aside for open science research
through the DOE Office of Science's (SC) highly select Innovative and Novel Computational
Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) program. There are currently 20 INCITE projects
at the ALCF that will use 111 million hours of computing time this year. SC's Office of
Advanced Scientific Computing Research provides high-level computer power focused on
large-scale installation used by scientists and engineers in many disciplines.
For more details, see the "Argonne Press Release"
news and notes archive
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