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At least 181 records · Page 10

Computing for the DUNE Long-Baseline Neutrino Oscillation Experiment

This is a talk given at Computers in High Energy Physics in Adelaide, South Australia, Australia in November 2019. It is partially intended to explain the context of DUNE Computing for computing specialists. The DUNE collaboration consists of over 180 institutions from 33 countries. The experiment is in preparation now with commissioning of the first 10kT fiducial volume Liquid Argon TPC expected over the period 2025-2028 and a long data taking run with 4 modules expected from 2029 and beyond. An active prototyping program is already in place with a short test beam run with a 700T, 15,360 channel prototype of single-phase readout at the neutrino platform at CERN in late 2018 and tests of a similar sized dual-phase detector scheduled for mid-2019. The 2018 test beam run was a valuable live test of our computing model. The detector produced raw data at rates of up to ~2GB/s. These data were stored at full rate on tape at CERN and Fermilab and replicated at sites in the UK and Czech Republic. In total 1.2 PB of raw data from beam and cosmic triggers were produced and reconstructed during the six week test beam run. Baseline predictions for the full DUNE detector data, starting in the late 2020's are 30-60 PB of raw data per year. In contrast to traditional HEP computational problems, DUNE's Liquid Argon TPC data consist of simple but very large (many GB) 2D data objects which share many characteristics with astrophysical images. This presents opportunities to use advances in machine learning and pattern recognition as a frontier user of High Performance Computing facilities capable of massively parallel processing.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Status of DUNE Offline Computing

We summarize the status of Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) Offline Software and Computing program. We describe plans for the computing infrastructure needed to acquire, catalog, reconstruct, simulate and analyze the data from the DUNE experiment and its prototypes in pursuit of the experiment's physics goals of precision measurements of neutrino oscillation parameters, detection of astrophysical neutrinos, measurement of neutrino interaction properties and searches for physics beyond the Standard Model. In contrast to traditional HEP computational problems, DUNE's Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber data consist of simple but very large (many GB) data objects which share many characteristics with astrophysical images. We have successfully reconstructed and simulated data from 4% prototype detector runs at CERN. The data volume from the full DUNE detector, when it starts commissioning late in this decade will present memory management challenges in conventional processing but significant opportunities to use advances in machine learning and pattern recognition as a frontier user of High Performance Computing facilities capable of massively parallel processing. Our goal is to develop infrastructure resources that are flexible and accessible enough to support creative software solutions as HEP computing evolves.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

Accelerating Simulation for High-Fidelity PV Inverter System Reliability Assessment with High-Performance Computing

The overall cost of photovoltaic (PV) systems has shown a downward trend during the last decade; however, PV inverter failures account for the highest cost of operation and maintenance. To address this, reliability tools with powerful computation and better accuracy are required for the lifetime prediction and degradation evaluation of PV inverters. This paper proposes an event-driven parallel computing-based simulator. The proposed simulator applies high-performance computing techniques and other accessory optimization techniques-including cluster merging, adaptive model updates, and steady-state identification-to make reliability assessments for PV inverters under given input mission profiles and operating conditions with high efficiency and high fidelity. The main idea of the simulator and its workflow are introduced. Then, a demo PV inverter system simulator is implemented, and the speedup of the total simulations of the switching model reaches 123.03 times.

high-performance computing↗

Enabling Large-Scale Condensed-Phase Hybrid Density Functional Theory Based Ab Initio Molecular Dynamics. 1. Theory, Algorithm, and Performance

By including a fraction of exact exchange (EXX), hybrid functionals reduce the self-interaction error in semilocal density functional theory (DFT) and thereby furnish a more accurate and reliable description of the underlying electronic structure in systems throughout biology, chemistry, physics, and materials science. However, the high computational cost associated with the evaluation of all required EXX quantities has limited the applicability of hybrid DFT in the treatment of large molecules and complex condensed-phase materials. To overcome this limitation, we describe a linear-scaling approach that utilizes a local representation of the occupied orbitals (e.g., maximally localized Wannier functions (MLWFs)) to exploit the sparsity in the real-space evaluation of the quantum mechanical exchange interaction in finite-gap systems. In this work, we present a detailed description of the theoretical and algorithmic advances required to perform MLWF-based ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD) simulations of large-scale condensed-phase systems of interest at the hybrid DFT level. We focus our theoretical discussion on the integration of this approach into the framework of Car–Parrinello AIMD, and highlight the central role played by the MLWF-product potential (i.e., the solution of Poisson’s equation for each corresponding MLWF-product density) in the evaluation of the EXX energy and wave function forces. We then provide a comprehensive description of the exx algorithm implemented in the open-source Quantum ESPRESSO program, which employs a hybrid MPI/OpenMP parallelization scheme to efficiently utilize the high-performance computing (HPC) resources available on current- and next-generation supercomputer architectures. Furthermore, this is followed by a critical assessment of the accuracy and parallel performance (e.g., strong and weak scaling) of this approach when AIMD simulations of liquid water are performed in the canonical (NVT) ensemble. With access to HPC resources, we demonstrate that exx enables hybrid DFT-based AIMD simulations of condensed-phase systems containing 500–1000 atoms (e.g., (H₂O)₂₅₆) with a wall time cost that is comparable to that of semilocal DFT. In doing so, exx takes us one step closer to routinely performing AIMD simulations of complex and large-scale condensed-phase systems for sufficiently long time scales at the hybrid DFT level of theory.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

A Queue Simulation Tool for a High Performance Scientific Computing Center

The NASA Center for Computational Sciences (NCCS) at the Goddard Space Flight Center provides high performance highly parallel processors, mass storage, and supporting infrastructure to a community of computational Earth and space scientists. Long running (days) and highly parallel (hundreds of CPUs) jobs are common in the workload. NCCS management structures batch queues and allocates resources to optimize system use and prioritize workloads. NCCS technical staff use a locally developed discrete event simulation tool to model the impacts of evolving workloads, potential system upgrades, alternative queue structures and resource allocation policies.

Spear, Carrie↗

Architecture Adaptive Computing Environment

Architecture Adaptive Computing Environment (aCe) is a software system that includes a language, compiler, and run-time library for parallel computing. aCe was developed to enable programmers to write programs, more easily than was previously possible, for a variety of parallel computing architectures. Heretofore, it has been perceived to be difficult to write parallel programs for parallel computers and more difficult to port the programs to different parallel computing architectures. In contrast, aCe is supportable on all high-performance computing architectures. Currently, it is supported on LINUX clusters. aCe uses parallel programming constructs that facilitate writing of parallel programs. Such constructs were used in single-instruction/multiple-data (SIMD) programming languages of the 1980s, including Parallel Pascal, Parallel Forth, C*, *LISP, and MasPar MPL. In aCe, these constructs are extended and implemented for both SIMD and multiple- instruction/multiple-data (MIMD) architectures. Two new constructs incorporated in aCe are those of (1) scalar and virtual variables and (2) pre-computed paths. The scalar-and-virtual-variables construct increases flexibility in optimizing memory utilization in various architectures. The pre-computed-paths construct enables the compiler to pre-compute part of a communication operation once, rather than computing it every time the communication operation is performed.

Dorband, John E.↗

yourSky: Custom Sky-Image Mosaics via the Internet

yourSky (http://yourSky.jpl.nasa.gov) is a computer program that supplies custom astronomical image mosaics of sky regions specified by requesters using client computers connected to the Internet. [yourSky is an upgraded version of the software reported in Software for Generating Mosaics of Astronomical Images (NPO-21121), NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 25, No. 4 (April 2001), page 16a.] A requester no longer has to engage in the tedious process of determining what subset of images is needed, nor even to know how the images are indexed in image archives. Instead, in response to a requester s specification of the size and location of the sky area, (and optionally of the desired set and type of data, resolution, coordinate system, projection, and image format), yourSky automatically retrieves the component image data from archives totaling tens of terabytes stored on computer tape and disk drives at multiple sites and assembles the component images into a mosaic image by use of a high-performance parallel code. yourSky runs on the server computer where the mosaics are assembled. Because yourSky includes a Web-interface component, no special client software is needed: ordinary Web browser software is sufficient.

Jacob, Joseph↗

High performance computing applications in neurobiological research

The human nervous system is a massively parallel processor of information. The vast numbers of neurons, synapses and circuits is daunting to those seeking to understand the neural basis of consciousness and intellect. Pervading obstacles are lack of knowledge of the detailed, three-dimensional (3-D) organization of even a simple neural system and the paucity of large scale, biologically relevant computer simulations. We use high performance graphics workstations and supercomputers to study the 3-D organization of gravity sensors as a prototype architecture foreshadowing more complex systems. Scaled-down simulations run on a Silicon Graphics workstation and scale-up, three-dimensional versions run on the Cray Y-MP and CM5 supercomputers.

Ross, Muriel D.↗

HPCC Methodologies for Structural Design and Analysis on Parallel and Distributed Computing Platforms

In this grant, we have proposed a three-year research effort focused on developing High Performance Computation and Communication (HPCC) methodologies for structural analysis on parallel processors and clusters of workstations, with emphasis on reducing the structural design cycle time. Besides consolidating and further improving the FETI solver technology to address plate and shell structures, we have proposed to tackle the following design related issues: (a) parallel coupling and assembly of independently designed and analyzed three-dimensional substructures with non-matching interfaces, (b) fast and smart parallel re-analysis of a given structure after it has undergone design modifications, (c) parallel evaluation of sensitivity operators (derivatives) for design optimization, and (d) fast parallel analysis of mildly nonlinear structures. While our proposal was accepted, support was provided only for one year.

Farhat, Charbel↗

Real-space solution to the electronic structure problem for nearly a million electrons

We report a Kohn–Sham density functional theory calculation of a system with more than 200 000 atoms and 800 000 electrons using a real-space high-order finite-difference method to investigate the electronic structure of large spherical silicon nanoclusters. Our system of choice was a 20 nm large spherical nanocluster with 202 617 silicon atoms and 13 836 hydrogen atoms used to passivate the dangling surface bonds. To speed up the convergence of the eigenspace, we utilized Chebyshev-filtered subspace iteration, and for sparse matrix–vector multiplications, we used blockwise Hilbert space-filling curves, implemented in the PARSEC code. For this calculation, we also replaced our orthonormalization + Rayleigh–Ritz step with a generalized eigenvalue problem step. We utilized all of the 8192 nodes (458 752 processors) on the Frontera machine at the Texas Advanced Computing Center. We achieved two Chebyshev-filtered subspace iterations, yielding a good approximation of the electronic density of states. Our work pushes the limits on the capabilities of the current electronic structure solvers to nearly 106 electrons and demonstrates the potential of the real-space approach to efficiently parallelize large calculations on modern high-performance computing platforms.

Chemistry↗

Development of a CPU/GPU portable software library for Lagrangian–Eulerian simulations of liquid sprays

The Lagrangian–Eulerian method is widely used for simulations of fuel sprays in turbulent combustion because of the advantage of treating the spray droplets as discrete points. One challenge of the Lagrangian–Eulerian method is the intense computational requirement when tracking the large number of Lagrangian particles needed for high fidelity. We have developed a performance-portable library, Grit, to track the Lagrangian particles in parallel on central processing unit (CPU) and graphics processing unit (GPU) accelerated high performance computing (HPC) architectures. Grit is a C++ library which employs Message Passing Interface (MPI) for distributed memory parallelism and Kokkos programming model for on-node shared memory parallelism with performance portability across different architectures of GPUs and multi-core/manycore CPUs. The parallel algorithms, key parallel kernels, and their performances on the pre-exascale supercomputer, Summit, are presented. Grit is coupled with a direct numerical simulation (DNS) solver, S3D, for multiphase simulations. A conservative formulation has been developed and implemented in Grit for phase coupling with thermodynamic consistency. The formulation separates the conservation of mass, momentum and energy from the physical models to prevent accidental violation of conservation laws due to inconsistent models. The formulation also enforces consistent definitions of enthalpies of the fuel for both phases and the latent heat of evaporation. Finally, simulations of turbulent particle-laden flow and the evaporation of dilute turbulent spray jet are performed to verify the software implementation, and to demonstrate the scalability of Grit for large-scale multiphase simulations.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Using Parameter Sweep in WaterTAP to Analyze New Water Treatment Technologies

We describe a powerful and generalized parameter sweep tool in this report that was originally developed to analyze the performance of existing and novel water treatment models being developed in WaterTAP. Since WaterTAP is built upon IDAES and Pyomo, the parameter sweep tool can be used to systematically explore and debug the behavior of most Pyomo and IDAES numerical models. In order to enable meaningful analyses, the parameter sweep tool has been designed with the following features: 1) Model flexibility: The parameter sweep tool does not enforce any restrictions on the types of models that can be used with it. As long as a Pyomo model can be solved and the parameter is active and mutable, the tool only needs functions that describe how to run the model, the sweep parameters, and the output quantities of interest. 2) Flexible sampling: The parameter sweep tool has inbuilt functions to generate samples from a random distribution or a multidimensional Euclidean space. Furthermore, the users have to ability to supply samples generated from a tool of their choice. 3) Multiple sweep types: A user can choose from one of 3 types of parameter sweeps depending on their needs. 4) Detailed outputs: Outputs generated by the parameter sweep tool can be stored in detailed H5 file or user-friendly CSV files for post processing. 5) Parallel computing: The parameter sweep supports shared and distributed memory parallel computing to enable the use of high performance computers (HPC) for large-scale analyses. 6) Modular: The parameter sweep tool is self-contained and can easily be integrated within an outer-loop analysis or as desired by the user. 7) Ease of use: The tool is well documented and a simple sweep can be easily executed by following the online documentation in a few lines of code. We demonstrate the use of the parameter sweep tool on a simple water treatment system from the WaterTAP repository and show its parallel scaling performance on an Apple laptop and NREL's Eagle HPC. The parameter sweep tool is actively being used with models currently being developed within WaterTAP and we expect its use to grow beyond it to other IDAES and Pyomo models.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Solving the electronic structure problem for over 100000 atoms in real space

Using a real-space high-order finite-difference approach, we investigate the electronic structure of large spherical silicon nanoclusters. Within Kohn-Sham density functional theory and using pseudopotentials, we report the self-consistent field convergence of a system with over 100000 atoms: a Si 107,641 ⁢H 9,084 nanocluster with a diameter of 16 nm. Our approach uses Chebyshev-filtered subspace iteration to speed up the convergence of the eigenspace, and blockwise Hilbert space-filling curves to speed up sparse matrix-vector multiplications, all of which are implemented in the parsec code. For the largest system, we utilized 2048 nodes (114 688 cores) on the Frontera machine in the Texas Advanced Computing Center. Our quantitative analysis of the electronic structure shows how it gradually approaches its bulk counterpart as a function of nanocluster size. The band gap is enlarged due to quantum confinement in nanoclusters, but decreases as the system size increases, as expected. In conclusion, our work serves as a proof of concept for the capacity of the real-space approach in efficiently parallelizing very large calculations using high-performance computer platforms, which can straightforwardly be replicated in other systems with more than 10 5 atoms.

0-dimensional systems↗

Position Paper - pFLogger: The Parallel Fortran Logging framework for HPC Applications

In the context of high performance computing (HPC), software investments in support of text-based diagnostics, which monitor a running application, are typically limited compared to those for other types of IO. Examples of such diagnostics include reiteration of configuration parameters, progress indicators, simple metrics (e.g., mass conservation, convergence of solvers, etc.), and timers. To some degree, this difference in priority is justifiable as other forms of output are the primary products of a scientific model and, due to their large data volume, much more likely to be a significant performance concern. In contrast, text-based diagnostic content is generally not shared beyond the individual or group running an application and is most often used to troubleshoot when something goes wrong. We suggest that a more systematic approach enabled by a logging facility (or logger) similar to those routinely used by many communities would provide significant value to complex scientific applications. In the context of high-performance computing, an appropriate logger would provide specialized support for distributed and shared-memory parallelism and have low performance overhead. In this paper, we present our prototype implementation of pFlogger a parallel Fortran-based logging framework, and assess its suitability for use in a complex scientific application.

Fortran↗

POSITION PAPER - pFLogger: The Parallel Fortran Logging Framework for HPC Applications

In the context of high performance computing (HPC), software investments in support of text-based diagnostics, which monitor a running application, are typically limited compared to those for other types of IO. Examples of such diagnostics include reiteration of configuration parameters, progress indicators, simple metrics (e.g., mass conservation, convergence of solvers, etc.), and timers. To some degree, this difference in priority is justifiable as other forms of output are the primary products of a scientific model and, due to their large data volume, much more likely to be a significant performance concern. In contrast, text-based diagnostic content is generally not shared beyond the individual or group running an application and is most often used to troubleshoot when something goes wrong. We suggest that a more systematic approach enabled by a logging facility (or 'logger') similar to those routinely used by many communities would provide significant value to complex scientific applications. In the context of high-performance computing, an appropriate logger would provide specialized support for distributed and shared-memory parallelism and have low performance overhead. In this paper, we present our prototype implementation of pFlogger - a parallel Fortran-based logging framework, and assess its suitability for use in a complex scientific application.

Clune, Thomas L.↗

USRA/RIACS

The Research Institute for Advanced Computer Science (RIACS) was established by the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) at the NASA Ames Research Center (ARC) on June 6, 1983. RIACS is privately operated by USRA, a consortium of universities with research programs in the aerospace sciences, under a cooperative agreement with NASA. The primary mission of RIACS is to provide research and expertise in computer science and scientific computing to support the scientific missions of NASA ARC. The research carried out at RIACS must change its emphasis from year to year in response to NASA ARC's changing needs and technological opportunities. A flexible scientific staff is provided through a university faculty visitor program, a post doctoral program, and a student visitor program. Not only does this provide appropriate expertise but it also introduces scientists outside of NASA to NASA problems. A small group of core RIACS staff provides continuity and interacts with an ARC technical monitor and scientific advisory group to determine the RIACS mission. RIACS activities are reviewed and monitored by a USRA advisory council and ARC technical monitor. Research at RIACS is currently being done in the following areas: (1) parallel computing; (2) advanced methods for scientific computing; (3) learning systems; (4) high performance networks and technology; and (5) graphics, visualization, and virtual environments. In the past year, parallel compiler techniques and adaptive numerical methods for flows in complicated geometries were identified as important problems to investigate for ARC's involvement in the Computational Grand Challenges of the next decade. We concluded a summer student visitors program during this six months. We had six visiting graduate students that worked on projects over the summer and presented seminars on their work at the conclusion of their visits. RIACS technical reports are usually preprints of manuscripts that have been submitted to research journals or conference proceedings. A list of these reports for the period July 1, 1992 through December 31, 1992 is provided.

Oliger, Joseph↗

Robust wind farm layout optimization

Wake interactions in wind farms cause losses in annual energy production (AEP) on the order of 10%. Wind farm designers optimize the layout of the farm to mitigate wake losses, especially in the dominant site-specific wind directions. As wind turbines and wind farms grow in scale, optimization becomes more complex. Offshore wind farms regularly comprise more than 100 wind turbines and are characterized by complex boundaries due to shipping lanes, neighboring wind farms, and other constraints. Layout optimization methods are broadly split between gradient-based and gradient-free approaches. Gradient-based approaches can converge quickly and perform well for smaller, academic problems but are often sensitive to initial conditions and tuning parameters and require expert knowledge to use. On the other hand, gradient-free approaches can be more robust to problem complexities. We present a robust layout optimization approach based on a random search algorithm. The algorithm is intended for those who are not optimization experts and has few tuning parameters that need specification to achieve satisfactory results. Unlike off-the-shelf methods, which use generally available, non-domain-specific optimization routines that accept as inputs an optimization function and constraint definitions, this approach takes advantage of the relative computational costs of the different evaluations by evaluating cheaper computations first (boundary and minimum distance constraints) and running expensive AEP evaluations only if all other checks pass. Moreover, an outer genetic algorithm allows multiple solutions to evolve in parallel, enabling rapid solution development on high-performance computers. We discuss the relative ease of selecting necessary tuning parameters and demonstrate the efficacy of the genetic random search on a complex layout problem consisting of placing 70 turbines in a nonconvex and unconnected boundary region.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

Modelling parallel programs and multiprocessor architectures with AXE

AXE, An Experimental Environment for Parallel Systems, was designed to model and simulate for parallel systems at the process level. It provides an integrated environment for specifying computation models, multiprocessor architectures, data collection, and performance visualization. AXE is being used at NASA-Ames for developing resource management strategies, parallel problem formulation, multiprocessor architectures, and operating system issues related to the High Performance Computing and Communications Program. AXE's simple, structured user-interface enables the user to model parallel programs and machines precisely and efficiently. Its quick turn-around time keeps the user interested and productive. AXE models multicomputers. The user may easily modify various architectural parameters including the number of sites, connection topologies, and overhead for operating system activities. Parallel computations in AXE are represented as collections of autonomous computing objects known as players. Their use and behavior is described. Performance data of the multiprocessor model can be observed on a color screen. These include CPU and message routing bottlenecks, and the dynamic status of the software.

Yan, Jerry C.↗