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The Terascale Simulation Tools and Technology Center

PIs: J. Glimm^1,2, D. Brown³, L. Freitag⁴, Co-PIs: E. D’Azevedo⁵, P. Fischer⁶, P. Knupp⁴, X.L. Li², M. Shephard⁷, H. Trease⁸, Affiliated Researchers: J. Drake⁵ (Climate), K.Ko⁹ (Accelerators), S. Jardin¹⁰ (CEMM), C. Tzanos⁶ (Combustion), T. Mezzacappa⁵ (TSI), R. Rosner¹¹ (MRC/FLASH), D. Quinlan³ (PERC ISIC)

¹Brookhaven National Laboratory, ²State University of New York at Stony Brook, ³Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, ⁴Sandia National Laboratories, ⁵Oak Ridge National Laboratory, ⁶Argonne National Laboratory, ⁷Rensselear Polytechnic Institute, ⁸Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, ⁹Stanford Linear Accelerator, ¹⁰Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, ¹¹University of Chicago

Summary

The TSTT Center aims to eliminate the barriers associated with using sophisticated meshing and discretization tools in DOE scientific applications that involve complex geometry. To accomplish this goal we are working directly with a number of SciDAC application partners to insert TSTT technology directly into their codes. We are also creating new technology to ease the development of powerful hybrid solution strategies that employ multiple meshing and discretization techniques in an interoperable and interchangeable way.

Vision. Terascale computing environments provide an unprecedented opportunity to perform numerical simulations at levels of detail and accuracy previously unattainable. The Terascale Simulation Tools and Technologies (TSTT) center aims to help application scientists exploit this opportunity by allowing them to more easily use modern high-order, adaptive, parallel mesh and discretization tools. By working directly with a number of SciDAC application teams to introduce these technologies into their application domains, TSTT is making a near term impact on the SciDAC applications, ensuring that new TSTT technology will remain relevant to a broad range of DOE science applications. In addition, by developing new technologies, we will eliminate the technical and human barriers preventing the effective use of powerful meshing and discretization techniques in large-scale scientific simulations. A key goal of these efforts is to enable existing techniques to be used in an interoperable and interchangeable way, thus laying the groundwork for the development of new application codes that employ powerful hybrid solution techniques.

TSTT and SciDAC Applications. We have invested a significant portion of our resources in meeting with scientists from each of the SciDAC application areas, analyzing their needs for advanced meshing and discretization technologies, and working with them to demonstrate the promise of such techniques in their application domains.

Accelerator Design: TSTT is helping to improve the robustness of time-dependent electromagnetic simulation codes by understanding the dependence of robustness on mesh quality, and by improving the stability properties of the underlying discretization algorithms. TSTT mesh generation technology is being used to shorten the time required to generate high quality meshes. See Figure.

An all hexahedral mesh generated for the Stanford Linear Accelerator SciDAC application

Astrophysics: TSTT has demonstrated the potential impact of high-resolution Discontinuous Galerkin discretization methods for hydrodynamics and neutrino transport. These methods can improve accuracy and reduce time to solution for astrophysics applications.

Climate: TSTT has investigated mesh generation strategies that create high-quality meshes with mesh points focused over regions of high altitude. TSTT and the members of the climate modeling community have jointly developed a new preconditioner for spectral element simulations, accelerating the solution of an important test problem for climate scientists.

Diesel spray formation: TSTT is applying advanced front-tracking technology to create a simulation code modeling spray formation in diesel engine injection systems.

Fusion: TSTT is investigating the use of high-order adaptive finite element methods to improve the performance of MHD fusion simulations.

Computational Biology: TSTT is applying meshing technology in a novel way to develop image reconstruction and feature extraction for complex biological systems.

TSTT Technology Developments. The TSTT center is working on new technology developments in three primary areas.

1) We are working to ensure that TSTT tools can interoperate by defining a common software interface for mesh and geometry access that all support. By writing to this interface, application scientists can use any compliant TSTT technology in the solution of their application problems. This is also the first step in providing a software environment that supports hybrid solution strategies.

2) We are highlighting the promise of a software environment that supports interoperability through demonstrations of one-on-one tool interfaces. The most notable of these efforts is the combination of front-tracking techniques with adaptive refinement techniques to create a new, highly accurate and computationally efficient technique for modeling sharp interfaces.

3) We are developing new technologies to enable hybrid solution processes. For example, we are creating a stand-alone mesh quality improvement toolkit and a discretization library that will work with all TSTT mesh management software packages through the TSTT interface.

Future Work. The TSTT team will continue to work closely with all our SciDAC application partners to ensure that advanced meshing and discretization strategies can be used to their fullest extent. We will continue to develop common interfaces for TSTT meshing and discretization technology and demonstrate the utility of a software environment that supports interoperability for hybrid solution strategies.

The TSTT Team. The TSTT partners, representing six DOE national laboratories (ANL, BNL, LLNL, ORNL, PNL, SNL) and two universities (RPI and SUNY SB), bring extensive expertise in structured, unstructured, and hybrid meshing and discretization technologies into one Center with the goal of delivering advanced, mesh-based simulation capabilities to scientific applications.

Benefits from Teaming. The SciDAC team approach has transformed the manner in which the Center members conduct science. For example, SciDAC support has made possible the research required to define a common interface for DOE meshing technologies. Collaborations, interactions, end use relevance, and integration with the (team) work of others have been given a proper and increased emphasis in the advancement of scientific discovery for the DOE.

Further Information: http://www.tstt-scidac.org

Contact Information:
James Glimm, Brookhaven National Laboratory
Phone: 631-333-8155, glimm@bnl.gov
David D. Brown, Livermore National Laboratory
Phone: 925-424-3557, dlb@llnl.gov
Lori Freitag Diachin, Sandia National Laboratories
Phone: 505-284-9711, ladiach@sandia.gov

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