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At least 199 records · Page 11

Reduced order modelling for dynamic simulations: LDRD feasibility study final report

This feasibility study (12-FS-007) investigated the current state-of-the-art for the construction of reduced order models (ROMs) from dynamic PDE-based simulations. One novel result of was the demonstration of a time-partitioned ROM for the advection-diffusion equation that achieved high accuracy with a small ROM size. The time-domain of a model PDE was partitioned and a fixed-size ROM was tuned to each subdomain resulting in an effective method for achieving an efficient and accurate ROM for a dynamic problem. This LDRD also investigated the construction ROMs for simulations that utilize overlapping grids. In this case, it was found that weighting the discrete inner product in a manner that approximates the continuous inner product yields a significantly more accurate ROM. This project demonstrated the feasibility of applying reduced order models to complex PDE-based simulation tools and explored the benefits of adaptive ROM techniques. The results of the work led to an Exploratory Research LDRD, funded for FY13, that will focus on the development of composite adaptive reduced order models suitable for use with a number of LLNL applications.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Hierarchical and Parallelizable Direct Volume Rendering for Irregular and Multiple Grids

A general volume rendering technique is described that efficiently produces images of excellent quality from data defined over irregular grids having a wide variety of formats. Rendering is done in software, eliminating the need for special graphics hardware, as well as any artifacts associated with graphics hardware. Images of volumes with about one million cells can be produced in one to several minutes on a workstation with a 150 MHz processor. A significant advantage of this method for applications such as computational fluid dynamics is that it can process multiple intersecting grids. Such grids present problems for most current volume rendering techniques. Also, the wide range of cell sizes (by a factor of 10,000 or more), which is typical of such applications, does not present difficulties, as it does for many techniques. A spatial hierarchical organization makes it possible to access data from a restricted region efficiently. The tree has greater depth in regions of greater detail, determined by the number of cells in the region. It also makes it possible to render useful 'preview' images very quickly (about one second for one-million-cell grids) by displaying each region associated with a tree node as one cell. Previews show enough detail to navigate effectively in very large data sets. The algorithmic techniques include use of a kappa-d tree, with prefix-order partitioning of triangles, to reduce the number of primitives that must be processed for one rendering, coarse-grain parallelism for a shared-memory MIMD architecture, a new perspective transformation that achieves greater numerical accuracy, and a scanline algorithm with depth sorting and a new clipping technique.

Wilhelms, Jane↗

Performance Assessment of OVERFLOW on Distributed Computing Environment

The aerodynamic computer code, OVERFLOW, with a multi-zone overset grid feature, has been parallelized to enhance its performance on distributed and shared memory paradigms. Practical application benchmarks have been set to assess the efficiency of code's parallelism on high-performance architectures. The code's performance has also been experimented with in the context of the distributed computing paradigm on distant computer resources using the Information Power Grid (IPG) toolkit, Globus. Two parallel versions of the code, namely OVERFLOW-MPI and -MLP, have developed around the natural coarse grained parallelism inherent in a multi-zonal domain decomposition paradigm. The algorithm invokes a strategy that forms a number of groups, each consisting of a zone, a cluster of zones and/or a partition of a large zone. Each group can be thought of as a process with one or multithreads assigned to it and that all groups run in parallel. The -MPI version of the code uses explicit message-passing based on the standard MPI library for sending and receiving interzonal boundary data across processors. The -MLP version employs no message-passing paradigm; the boundary data is transferred through the shared memory. The -MPI code is suited for both distributed and shared memory architectures, while the -MLP code can only be used on shared memory platforms. The IPG applications are implemented by the -MPI code using the Globus toolkit. While a computational task is distributed across multiple computer resources, the parallelism can be explored on each resource alone. Performance studies are achieved with some practical aerodynamic problems with complex geometries, consisting of 2.5 up to 33 million grid points and a large number of zonal blocks. The computations were executed primarily on SGI Origin 2000 multiprocessors and on the Cray T3E. OVERFLOW's IPG applications are carried out on NASA homogeneous metacomputing machines located at three sites, Ames, Langley and Glenn. Plans for the future will exploit the distributed parallel computing capability on various homogeneous and heterogeneous resources and large scale benchmarks. Alternative IPG toolkits will be used along with sophisticated zonal grouping strategies to minimize the communication time across the computer resources.

Djomehri, M. Jahed↗

Accelerating Computation of the Unit Commitment Problem (Presentation)

Production cost models (PCMs) simulate power system operation at hourly (or higher) resolution. While computation times often extend into multiple days, the sequential nature of PCM's makes parallelism difficult. We exploit the persistence of unit commitment decisions to select partition boundaries for simulation horizon decomposition and parallel computation. Partitioned simulations are benchmarked against sequential solutions for optimality and computation time.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Modeling pre-Exascale AMR Parallel I/O Workloads via Proxy Applications

The present work investigates the modeling of preexascale input/output (I/O) workloads of Adaptive Mesh Refinement (AMR) simulations through a simple proxy application. We collect data from the AMReX Castro framework running on the Summit supercomputer for a wide range of scales and mesh partitions for the hydrodynamic Sedov case as a baseline to provide sufficient coverage to the formulated proxy model. The non-linear analysis data production rates are quantified as a function of a set of input parameters such as output frequency, grid size, number of levels, and the Courant-Friedrichs-Lewy (CFL) condition number for each rank, mesh level and simulation time step. Linear regression is then applied to formulate a simple analytical model which allows to translate AMReX inputs into MACSio proxy I/O application parameters, resulting in a simple “kernel” approximation for data production at each time step. Results show that MACSio can simulate actual AMReX nonlinear “static” I/O workloads to a certain degree of confidence on the Summit supercomputer using the present methodology. The goal is to provide an initial level of understanding of AMR I/O workloads via lightweight proxy applications models to facilitate autotune data management strategies in anticipation of exascale systems.

Godoy, William↗

Classifying planetary cloudiness with an updated set of MODIS Cloud Regimes

We present an updated Cloud Regime (CR) dataset based on Moderate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Collection 6.1 cloud products, specifically joint histograms that partition cloud fraction within distinct combinations of cloud top pressure and cloud optical thickness ranges. The paper focuses on an edition of the CR dataset derived from our own aggregation of MODIS pixel-level cloud retrievals on an equal area grid and pre-specified 3-hour UTC intervals that spatiotemporally match International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) gridded cloud data. The other edition comes from the 1-degree daily aggregation provided by standard MODIS Level-3 data, as in previous versions of the MODIS CRs, for easier use with datasets mapped on equal angle grids. Both editions consist of 11 clusters whose centroids are nearly identical.We provide a physical interpretation of the new CRs and aspects of their climatology that have not been previously examined, such as seasonal and interannual variability of CR frequency of occurrence. We also examine the makeup and precipitation properties of the CRs assisted by independent datasets originating from active observations, and provide a first glimpse of how MODIS CRs relate to clouds as seen by ISCCP.

MODIS↗

A stable partitioned FSI algorithm for incompressible flow and deforming beams

An added-mass partitioned (AMP) algorithm is described for solving fluid–structure interaction (FSI) problems coupling incompressible flows with thin elastic structures undergoing finite deformations. The new AMP scheme is fully second-order accurate and stable, without sub-time-step iterations, even for very light structures when added-mass effects are strong. The fluid, governed by the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations, is solved in velocity-pressure form using a fractional-step method; large deformations are treated with a mixed Eulerian-Lagrangian approach on deforming composite grids. The motion of the thin structure is governed by a generalized Euler–Bernoulli beam model, and these equations are solved in a Lagrangian frame using two approaches, one based on finite differences and the other on finite elements. The key AMP interface condition is a generalized Robin (mixed) condition on the fluid pressure. This condition, which is derived at a continuous level, has no adjustable parameters and is applied at the discrete level to couple the partitioned domain solvers. Special treatment of the AMP condition is required to couple the finite-element beam solver with the finite-difference-based fluid solver, and two coupling approaches are described. A normal-mode stability analysis is performed for a linearized model problem involving a beam separating two fluid domains, and it is shown that the AMP scheme is stable independent of the ratio of the mass of the fluid to that of the structure. A traditional partitioned (TP) scheme using a Dirichlet–Neumann coupling for the same model problem is shown to be unconditionally unstable if the added mass of the fluid is too large. A series of benchmark problems of increasing complexity are considered to illustrate the behavior of the AMP algorithm, and to compare the behavior with that of the TP scheme. The results of all these benchmark problems verify the stability and accuracy of the AMP scheme. Results for one benchmark problem modeling blood flow in a deforming artery are also compared with corresponding results available in the literature.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

The Effects of Disturbance and Climate on Carbon Storage and the Exchanges of CO 2 Water Vapor and Energy Exchange of Evergreen Coniferous Forests in the Pacific Northwest: Integration of Eddy Flux, Plant and Soil Measurements at a Cluster of Supersites. Final report

This is the final technical report containing a summary of all findings with regard to the following objectives of the project: (1) To quantify and understand the effects of wildfire on carbon storage and the exchanges of energy, CO2, and water vapor in a chronosequence of ponderosa pine (disturbance gradient); (2) To investigate the effects of seasonal and interannual variation in climate on carbon storage and the exchanges of energy, CO2, and water vapor in mature conifer forests in two climate zones: mesic 40-yr old Douglas-fir and semi-arid 60-yr old ponderosa pine (climate gradient); (3) To reduce uncertainty in estimates of CO2 feedbacks to the atmosphere by providing an improved model formulation for existing biosphere-atmosphere models; and (4) To provide high quality data for AmeriFlux and the NACP on micrometeorology, meteorology, and biology of these systems. Objective (1): A study integrating satellite remote sensing, AmeriFlux data, and field surveys in a simulation modeling framework estimated that the pyrogenic carbon emissions, tree mortality, and net carbon exchange associated with four large wildfires that burned ~50,000 hectares in 2002-2003 were equivalent to 2.4% of Oregon statewide anthropogenic carbon emissions over the same two-year period. Most emissions were from the combustion of the forest floor and understory vegetation, and only about 1% of live tree mass was combusted on average. Objective (2): A study of multi-year flux records across a chronosequence of ponderosa pine forests yielded that the net carbon uptake is over three times greater at a mature pine forest compared with young pine. The larger leaf area and wetter and cooler soils of the mature forest mainly caused this effect. A study analyzing seven years of carbon and water dynamics showed that interannual and seasonal variability of net carbon exchange was primarily related to variability in growing season length, which was a linear function of plant-available soil moisture in spring and early summer. A multi-year drought (2001-2003) led to a significant reduction of net ecosystem exchange due to carry-over effects in soil moisture and carbohydrate reserves in plant-tissue. In the same forest, the interannual variability in the rate carbon is lost from the soil and forest floor is considerable and related to the variability in tree growth as much as it is to variability in soil climatic conditions. Objective (3): Flux data from the mature ponderosa pine site support a physical basis for filtering nighttime data with friction velocity above the canopy. An analysis of wind fields and heat transport in the subcanopy at the mesic 40-year old Douglas site yielded that the non-linear structure and behavior of spatial temperature gradients and the flow field require enhanced sensor networks to estimate advective fluxes in the subcanopy of forest to close the surface energy balance in forests. Reliable estimates for flux uncertainties are needed to improve model validation and data assimilation in process-based carbon models, inverse modeling studies and model-data synthesis, where the uncertainties may be as important as the fluxes themselves. An analysis of the time scale dependence of the random and flux sampling error yielded that the additional flux obtained by increasing the perturbation timescale beyond about 10 minutes is dominated by random sampling error, and therefore little confidence can be placed in its value. Artificial correlation between gross ecosystem productivity (GEP) and ecosystem respiration (Re) is a consequence of flux partitioning of eddy covariance flux data when GEP is computed as the difference between NEE and computed daytime Re (e.g. using nighttime Re extrapolated into daytime using soil or air temperatures). Tower-data must be adequately spatially averaged before comparison to gridded model output as the time variability of both is inherently different. The eddy-covariance data collected at the mature ponderosa pine site and the mesic Douglas fir site were used to develop and evaluate a new method to extract the signal of ecosystem respiration directly from daytime net ecosystem exchange. This approach may help reducing uncertainty in carbon budgets by providing direct measurements of ecosystem respiration during daylight conditions by replacing modeled estimates. Objective (4): We submitted our flux and biological and ancillary data to the AmeriFlux web site and to Fluxnet. This includes atmospheric carbon, water, and heat fluxes, soil fluxes, NPP, carbon stocks, LAI, and disturbance history. Fluxnet is updating the original La Thuile files and will include the more recent years of data. They will be using a new approach to compute GPP, following discussions within the network about the need to improve GPP methodology

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Three-Dimensional High-Lift Analysis Using a Parallel Unstructured Multigrid Solver

A directional implicit unstructured agglomeration multigrid solver is ported to shared and distributed memory massively parallel machines using the explicit domain-decomposition and message-passing approach. Because the algorithm operates on local implicit lines in the unstructured mesh, special care is required in partitioning the problem for parallel computing. A weighted partitioning strategy is described which avoids breaking the implicit lines across processor boundaries, while incurring minimal additional communication overhead. Good scalability is demonstrated on a 128 processor SGI Origin 2000 machine and on a 512 processor CRAY T3E machine for reasonably fine grids. The feasibility of performing large-scale unstructured grid calculations with the parallel multigrid algorithm is demonstrated by computing the flow over a partial-span flap wing high-lift geometry on a highly resolved grid of 13.5 million points in approximately 4 hours of wall clock time on the CRAY T3E.

Mavriplis, Dimitri J.↗

Seasonal responses of terrestrial ecosystem water‐use efficiency to climate change

Abstract Ecosystem water‐use efficiency ( EWUE ) is an indicator of carbon–water interactions and is defined as the ratio of carbon assimilation ( GPP ) to evapotranspiration ( ET ). Previous research suggests an increasing long‐term trend in annual EWUE over many regions and is largely attributed to the physiological effects of rising CO 2 . The seasonal trends in EWUE , however, have not yet been analyzed. In this study, we investigate seasonal EWUE trends and responses to various drivers during 1982–2008. The seasonal cycle for two variants of EWUE , water‐use efficiency ( WUE , GPP / ET ), and transpiration‐based WUE ( WUE t , the ratio of GPP and transpiration), is analyzed from 0.5° gridded fields from four process‐based models and satellite‐based products, as well as a network of 63 local flux tower observations. WUE derived from flux tower observations shows moderate seasonal variation for most latitude bands, which is in agreement with satellite‐based products. In contrast, the seasonal EWUE trends are not well captured by the same satellite‐based products. Trend analysis, based on process‐model factorial simulations separating effects of climate, CO 2 , and nitrogen deposition ( NDEP ), further suggests that the seasonal EWUE trends are mainly associated with seasonal trends of climate, whereas CO 2 and NDEP do not show obvious seasonal difference in EWUE trends. About 66% grid cells show positive annual WUE trends, mainly over mid‐ and high northern latitudes. In these regions, spring climate change has amplified the effect of CO 2 in increasing WUE by more than 0.005 gC m −2 mm −1 yr −1 for 41% pixels. Multiple regression analysis further shows that the increase in springtime WUE in the northern hemisphere is the result of GPP increasing faster than ET because of the higher temperature sensitivity of GPP relative to ET . The partitioning of annual EWUE to seasonal components provides new insight into the relative sensitivities of GPP and ET to climate, CO 2, and NDEP .

Huang, Mengtian↗

Provably optimal parallel transport sweeps on regular grids

We have found provably optimal algorithms for full-domain discrete-ordinate transport sweeps on regular grids in 3D Cartesian geometry. We describe these algorithms and sketch a 'proof that they always execute the full eight-octant sweep in the minimum possible number of stages for a given P{sub x} x P{sub y} x P{sub z} partitioning. Computational results demonstrate that our optimal scheduling algorithms execute sweeps in the minimum possible stage count. Observed parallel efficiencies agree well with our performance model. An older version of our PDT transport code achieves almost 80% parallel efficiency on 131,072 cores, on a weak-scaling problem with only one energy group, 80 directions, and 4096 cells/core. A newer version is less efficient at present-we are still improving its implementation - but achieves almost 60% parallel efficiency on 393,216 cores. These results conclusively demonstrate that sweeps can perform with high efficiency on core counts approaching 10{sup 6}. (authors)

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Quasi-Optimal Elimination Trees for 2D Grids with Singularities

We construct quasi-optimal elimination trees for 2D finite element meshes with singularities. These trees minimize the complexity of the solution of the discrete system. The computational cost estimates of the elimination process model the execution of the multifrontal algorithms in serial and in parallel shared-memory executions. Since the meshes considered are a subspace of all possible mesh partitions, we call these minimizers quasi-optimal. We minimize the cost functionals using dynamic programming. Finding these minimizers is more computationally expensive than solving the original algebraic system. Nevertheless, from the insights provided by the analysis of the dynamic programming minima, we propose a heuristic construction of the elimination trees that has cost O N e log ⁡ N e , where N e is the number of elements in the mesh. We show that this heuristic ordering has similar computational cost to the quasi-optimal elimination trees found with dynamic programming and outperforms state-of-the-art alternatives in our numerical experiments.

Paszyńska, A.↗

High performance Data Driven Agent-based Modeling Framework for Simulation of Commute Mode Choices in Metropolitan Area

Active transportation, human-powered transportation modes such as walking and bicycling, not only reduces the carbon footprint from the transportation sector but also promotes healthy living by offering opportunities for people to build physical activity into their daily routine. To encourage active transportation through urban planning and public campaigns, it is of significant importance to infer factors that substantially influence commuters in their transportation mode choice process. This necessitates a flexible and repeatable tool that can evaluate how a policy is perceived by individual commuters and convert their decisions into macro level understanding. This paper introduces one such effort that is specifically designed for studies of transportation mode choices in metropolitan areas. It provides results from a high-resolution data driven simulation based on high performance computing implementation of the agent-based model framework for home-to-work commute trips. The framework uses a graph-partition based technique that can leverage the interaction structure of agents within a geographic proximity and can boost the simulation execution time. Further, based on a flexible design, it can run ABM with different levels of computing resources-from multi core workstations to an HPC grid. The framework has been tested on the Titan Cray XK7 supercomputer of the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility.

Park, Byung↗

Conceptual aspects of a statistical-dynamical approach to represent landscape subgrid-scale heterogeneities in atmospheric models

A parameterization of land surfaces based on a statistical-dynamical approach is presented. With this approach, the most important characteristics of the soil-plant-atmosphere system that affect the partition of energy (e.g., plant stomatal conductance, soil humidity, and surface roughness) are represented by a pdf rather than by a single 'representative' value. A primary simplified version of this parameterization is used to estimate the land-surface energy fluxes that are produced at the grid scale by various distributions of stomatal conductance under a broad range of environmental conditions. To demonstrate the approach's potential, results are compared with the same fluxes calculated with a big leaf model using the mean stomatal conductance that corresponds to the distributions. Large absolute and relative differences are obtained between the two schemes for many combinations of stomatal conductance pdfs and environmental conditions.

Avissar, Roni↗

Functional approach to exploring climatic and landscape controls of runoff generation: 1. Behavioral constraints on runoff volume

Abstract Inspired by the Dunne diagram, the climatic and landscape controls on the partitioning of annual runoff into its various components (Hortonian and Dunne overland flow and subsurface stormflow) are assessed quantitatively, from a purely theoretical perspective. A simple distributed hydrologic model has been built sufficient to simulate the effects of different combinations of climate, soil, and topography on the runoff generation processes. The model is driven by a sequence of simple hypothetical precipitation events, for a large combination of climate and landscape properties, and hydrologic responses at the catchment scale are obtained through aggregation of grid‐scale responses. It is found, first, that the water balance responses, including relative contributions of different runoff generation mechanisms, could be related to a small set of dimensionless similarity parameters. These capture the competition between the wetting, drying, storage, and drainage functions underlying the catchment responses, and in this way, provide a quantitative approximation of the conceptual Dunne diagram. Second, only a subset of all hypothetical catchment/climate combinations is found to be “behavioral,” in terms of falling sufficiently close to the Budyko curve, describing mean annual runoff as a function of climate aridity. Furthermore, these behavioral combinations are mostly consistent with the qualitative picture presented in the Dunne diagram, indicating clearly the commonality between the Budyko curve and the Dunne diagram. These analyses also suggest clear interrelationships amongst the “behavioral” climate, soil, and topography parameter combinations, implying these catchment properties may be constrained to be codependent in order to satisfy the Budyko curve.

Li, Hong‐Yi↗

Variations of characteristic time scales in rotating stratified turbulence using a large parametric numerical study

In this work, we study rotating stratified turbulence (RST) making use of numerical data stemming from a large parametric study varying the Reynolds, Froude and Rossby numbers, Re, Fr and Ro in a broad range of values. The computations are performed using periodic boundary conditions on grids of 10243 points, with no modeling of the small scales, no forcing and with large-scale random initial conditions for the velocity field only, and there are altogether 65 runs analyzed in this paper. The buoyancy Reynolds number defined as R B = ReFr 2 varies from negligible values to ≈ 105, approaching atmospheric or oceanic regimes. This preliminary analysis deals with the variation of characteristic time scales of RST with dimensionless parameters, focusing on the role played by the partition of energy between the kinetic and potential modes, as a key ingredient for modeling the dynamics of such flows. We find that neither rotation nor the ratio of the Brunt-Väisälä frequency to the inertial frequency seem to play a major role in the absence of forcing in the global dynamics of the small-scale kinetic and potential modes. Specifically, in these computations, mostly in regimes of wave turbulence, characteristic times based on the ratio of energy to dissipation of the velocity and temperature fluctuations, T V and T P , vary substantially with parameters. Their ratio γ=T V /T P follows roughly a bell-shaped curve in terms of Richardson number Ri. It reaches a plateau --on which time scales become comparable, γ≈0.6 -- when the turbulence has significantly strengthened, leading to numerous destabilization events together with a tendency towards an isotropization of the flow.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Influence of Soil Heterogeneity on Mesoscale Land Surface Fluxes During Washita '92

The influence of soil heterogeneity on the partitioning of mesoscale land surface energy fluxes at diurnal time scales is investigated over a 10(exp 6) sq km domain centered on the Little Washita Basin, Oklahoma, for the period June 10 - 18, 1992. The sensitivity study is carried out using MM5/PLACE, the Penn State/NCAR MM5 model enhanced with the Parameterization for Land-Atmosphere-Cloud Exchange or PLACE. PLACE is a one-dimensional land surface model possessing detailed plant and soil water physics algorithms, multiple soil layers, and the capacity to model subgrid heterogeneity. A series of 12-hour simulations were conducted with identical atmospheric initialization and land surface characterization but with different initial soil moisture and texture. A comparison then was made of the simulated land surface energy flux fields, the partitioning of net radiation into latent and sensible heat, and the soil moisture fields. Results indicate that heterogeneity in both soil moisture and texture affects the spatial distribution and partitioning of mesoscale energy balance. Spatial averaging results in an overprediction of latent heat flux, and an underestimation of sensible heat flux. In addition to the primary focus on the partitioning of the land surface energy, the modeling effort provided an opportunity to examine the issue of initializing the soil moisture fields for coupled three-dimensional models. For the present case, the initial soil moisture and temperature were determined from off-line modeling using PLACE at each grid box, driven with a combination of observed and assimilated data fields.

Jasinski, Michael F.↗