Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “linear algebra”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 217 records · Page 12

Numerical simulation of heat and mass transfer in unsteady nanofluid between two orthogonally moving porous coaxial disks

The paper deals with the study of heat and mass transfer in an unsteady viscous incompressible water-based nanofluid (containing Titanium dioxide nanoparticles) between two orthogonally moving porous coaxial disks with suction. A combination of iterative (successive over relaxation) and a direct method is employed for solving the sparse systems of linear algebraic equations arising from the FD discretization of the linearized self similar ODEs. It has been noticed that the rate of mass transfer at the disks decreases with the permeability Reynolds number whether the disks are approaching or receding. The findings of the present investigation may be beneficial for the electronic industry in maintaining the electronic components under effective and safe operational conditions.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Description and User Instructions for the Quaternion_to_Orbit_v3 Software

For a given inertial frame of reference, the software combines the spacecraft orbits with the spacecraft attitude quaternions, and rotates the body-fixed reference frame of a particular spacecraft to the inertial reference frame. The conversion assumes that the two spacecraft are aligned with respect to the mutual line of sight, with a parameterized time tag. The software is implemented in Python and is completely open source. It is very versatile, and may be applied under various circumstances and for other related purposes. Based on the solid linear algebra analysis, it has an extra option for compensating the linear pitch. This software has been designed for simulation of the calibration maneuvers performed by the two spacecraft comprising the GRAIL mission to the Moon, but has potential use for other applications. In simulations of formation flights, one needs to coordinate the spacecraft orbits represented in an appropriate inertial reference frame and the spacecraft attitudes. The latter are usually given as the time series of quaternions rotating the body-fixed reference frame of a particular spacecraft to the inertial reference frame. It is often desirable to simulate the same maneuver for different segments of the orbit. It is also useful to study various maneuvers that could be performed at the same orbit segment. These two lines of study are more timeand labor-efficient if the attitude and orbit data are generated independently, so that the part of the data that has not been changed can be recycled in the course of multiple simulations.

Strekalov, Dmitry V.↗

Exploiting Power Flow Manifold to Solve AC Optimal Power Flow

AC optimal power flow has proven difficult to solve with interior point methods on GPUs. This is largely due to challenging linear algebra problems that current state of the art massively parallel linear solvers struggle with. However, the advent of Riemannian optimization techniques and the fact that the power flow equations form a smooth manifold present an alternative approach. In this talk, we present the basics of Riemannian optimization techniques in which optimization is done directly on a manifold. Then we present computational results showing that Riemannian techniques are capable of producing solutions of comparable quality as interior point methods.

AC optimal power flow↗

Dynamical basis sets for algebraic variational calculations in quantum-mechanical scattering theory

New basis sets are proposed for linear algebraic variational calculations of transition amplitudes in quantum-mechanical scattering problems. These basis sets are hybrids of those that yield the Kohn variational principle (KVP) and those that yield the generalized Newton variational principle (GNVP) when substituted in Schlessinger's stationary expression for the T operator. Trial calculations show that efficiencies almost as great as that of the GNVP and much greater than the KVP can be obtained, even for basis sets with the majority of the members independent of energy.

Sun, Yan↗

Iterative methods in GPU-resident linear solvers for nonlinear constrained optimization

Linear solvers are major computational bottlenecks in a wide range of decision support and optimization computations. The challenges become even more pronounced on heterogeneous hardware, where traditional sparse numerical linear algebra methods are often inefficient. For example, methods for solving ill-conditioned linear systems have relied on conditional branching, which degrades performance on hardware accelerators such as graphical processing units (GPUs). To improve the efficiency of solving ill-conditioned systems, our computational strategy separates computations that are efficient on GPUs from those that need to run on traditional central processing units (CPUs). Our strategy maximizes the reuse of expensive CPU computations. Iterative methods, which thus far have not been broadly used for ill-conditioned linear systems, play an important role in our approach. In particular, we extend ideas from Arioli et al., (2007) to implement iterative refinement using inexact LU factors and flexible generalized minimal residual (FGMRES), with the aim of efficient performance on GPUs. In conclusion, we focus on solutions that are effective within broader application contexts, and discuss how early performance tests could be improved to be more predictive of the performance in a realistic environment.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Analytic Guidance for the First Entry in a Skip Atmospheric Entry

This paper presents an analytic method to generate a reference drag trajectory for the first entry portion of a skip atmospheric entry. The drag reference, expressed as a polynomial function of the velocity, will meet the conditions necessary to fit the requirements of the complete entry phase. The generic method proposed to generate the drag reference profile is further simplified by thinking of the drag and the velocity as density and cumulative distribution functions respectively. With this notion it will be shown that the reference drag profile can be obtained by solving a linear algebraic system of equations. The resulting drag profile is flown using the feedback linearization method of differential geometric control as guidance law with the error dynamics of a second order homogeneous equation in the form of a damped oscillator. This approach was first proposed as a revisited version of the Space Shuttle Orbiter entry guidance. However, this paper will show that it can be used to fly the first entry in a skip entry trajectory. In doing so, the gains in the error dynamics will be changed at a certain point along the trajectory to improve the tracking performance.

Garcia-Llama, Eduardo↗

Improved solution for ill-conditioned algebraic equations by epsilon decomposition

Matrix eigenvalue theory is presently used to examine the source of ill-conditioning in linear algebraic equations; the approach highlights the critical role played by the zero and near-zero eigenvalues and corresponding eigenvectors of poorly-conditioned systems. Insights derived from this approach are used to improve the recently developed epsilon-decomposition (E-D) solution procedure. The efficiency of E-D is significant for large matrices possessing small rank deficiency.

Ojalvo, Irving U.↗

Analytic Development of a Reference Profile for the First Entry in a Skip Atmospheric Entry

This note shows that a feasible reference drag profile for the first entry portion of a skip entry can be generated as a polynomial expression of the velocity. The coefficients of that polynomial are found through the resolution of a system composed of m + 1 equations, where m is the degree of the drag polynomial. It has been shown that a minimum of five equations (m = 4) are required to establish the range and the initial and final conditions on velocity and flight path angle. It has been shown that at least one constraint on the trajectory can be imposed through the addition of one extra equation in the system, which must be accompanied by the increase in the degree of the drag polynomial. In order to simplify the resolution of the system of equations, the drag was considered as being a probability density function of the velocity, with the velocity as a distribution function of the drag. Combining this notion with the introduction of empirically derived constants, it has been shown that the system of equations required to generate the drag profile can be successfully reduced to a system of linear algebraic equations. For completeness, the resulting drag profiles have been flown using the feedback linearization method of differential geometric control as a guidance law with the error dynamics of a second order homogeneous equation in the form of a damped oscillator. Satisfactory results were achieved when the gains in the error dynamics were changed at a certain point along the trajectory that is dependent on the velocity and the curvature of the drag as a function of the velocity. Future work should study the capacity to update the drag profile in flight when dispersions are introduced. Also, future studies should attempt to link the first entry, as presented and controlled in this note, with a more standard control concept for the second entry, such as the Apollo entry guidance, to try to assess the overall skip entry performance. A guidance law that includes an integral feedback term, as is the case in the actual Space Shuttle entry guidance and as is proposed in Ref 29, could be tried in future studies to assess whether its use results in an improvement of the tracking performance, and to evaluate the design needs when determining the control gains.

Garcia-Llama, Eduardo↗

Regression Model Term Selection for the Analysis of Strain-Gage Balance Calibration Data

The paper discusses the selection of regression model terms for the analysis of wind tunnel strain-gage balance calibration data. Different function class combinations are presented that may be used to analyze calibration data using either a non-iterative or an iterative method. The role of the intercept term in a regression model of calibration data is reviewed. In addition, useful algorithms and metrics originating from linear algebra and statistics are recommended that will help an analyst (i) to identify and avoid both linear and near-linear dependencies between regression model terms and (ii) to make sure that the selected regression model of the calibration data uses only statistically significant terms. Three different tests are suggested that may be used to objectively assess the predictive capability of the final regression model of the calibration data. These tests use both the original data points and regression model independent confirmation points. Finally, data from a simplified manual calibration of the Ames MK40 balance is used to illustrate the application of some of the metrics and tests to a realistic calibration data set.

Ulbrich, Norbert Manfred↗

Matrix Algebra for GPU and Multicore Architectures (MAGMA) for Large Petascale Systems

The goal of the MAGMA project is to create a new generation of linear algebra libraries that achieve the fastest possible time to an accurate solution on hybrid Multicore+GPU-based systems, using all the processing power that future high-end systems can make available within given energy constraints. Our efforts at the University of Tennessee achieved the goals set in all of the five areas identified in the proposal: 1. Communication optimal algorithms; 2. Autotuning for GPU and hybrid processors; 3. Scheduling and memory management techniques for heterogeneity and scale; 4. Fault tolerance and robustness for large scale systems; 5. Building energy efficiency into software foundations. The University of Tennessee’s main contributions, as proposed, were the research and software development of new algorithms for hybrid multi/many-core CPUs and GPUs, as related to two-sided factorizations and complete eigenproblem solvers, hybrid BLAS, and energy efficiency for dense, as well as sparse, operations. Furthermore, as proposed, we investigated and experimented with various techniques targeting the five main areas outlined.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

A high-order integral solver for scalar problems of diffraction by screens and apertures in three-dimensional space

We present a novel methodology for the numerical solution of problems of diffraction by infinitely thin screens in three-dimensional space. Our approach relies on new integral formulations as well as associated high-order quadrature rules. The new integral formulations involve weighted versions of the classical integral operators related to the thin-screen Dirichlet and Neumann problems as well as a generalization to the open-surface problem of the classical Calderón formulae. The high-order quadrature rules we introduce for these operators, in turn, resolve the multiple Green function and edge singularities (which occur at arbitrarily close distances from each other, and which include weakly singular as well as hypersingular kernels) and thus give rise to super-algebraically fast convergence as the discretization sizes are increased. When used in conjunction with Krylov-subspace linear algebra solvers such as GMRES, the resulting solvers produce results of high accuracy in small numbers of iterations for low and high frequencies alike. We demonstrate our methodology with a variety of numerical results for screen and aperture problems at high frequencies—including simulation of classical experiments such as the diffraction by a circular disc (featuring in particular the famous Poisson spot), evaluation of interference fringes resulting from diffraction across two nearby circular apertures, as well as solution of problems of scattering by more complex geometries consisting of multiple scatterers and cavities.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

HPC Programming on Intel Many-Integrated-Core Hardware with MAGMA Port to Xeon Phi

This paper presents the design and implementation of several fundamental dense linear algebra (DLA) algorithms for multicore with Intel Xeon Phi coprocessors. In particular, we consider algorithms for solving linear systems. Further, we give an overview of the MAGMA MIC library, an open source, high performance library, that incorporates the developments presented here and, more broadly, provides the DLA functionality equivalent to that of the popular LAPACK library while targeting heterogeneous architectures that feature a mix of multicore CPUs and coprocessors. The LAPACK-compliance simplifies the use of the MAGMA MIC library in applications, while providing them with portably performant DLA. High performance is obtained through the use of the high-performance BLAS, hardware-specific tuning, and a hybridization methodology whereby we split the algorithm into computational tasks of various granularities. Execution of those tasks is properly scheduled over the heterogeneous hardware by minimizing data movements and mapping algorithmic requirements to the architectural strengths of the various heterogeneous hardware components. Our methodology and programming techniques are incorporated into the MAGMA MIC API, which abstracts the application developer from the specifics of the Xeon Phi architecture and is therefore applicable to algorithms beyond the scope of DLA.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

A new solution for the 1D neutral particle transport equation in heterogeneous media - Paper 89

The equation of photon transport in directionally discretized 2N streams has been the subject of various numerical algorithms over the past 65 years since Chandrasekhar first explored the concept. The importance of this equation cannot be overemphasized, as it characterizes neutral particles (in this case photons) undergoing collisions as characterized by the scattering phase function in a 1D slab medium. More precisely, particles enter a homogeneous slab medium with the particle intensity distribution to be numerically determined. We find applications in light scattering for graphical rendering as well as deep penetration photon transport in a scattering medium as considered here. Noting the algebraic nature of the solution, numerous numerical attempts at an efficient algorithm have appeared in the literature-- many involving numerical linear algebra. Most notable are the Discrete Ordinates Method [DOM] of Stamnes and the Analytical Discrete Ordinates (ADO) method of Siewert as well as the Laplace Transform (LTSN) method of Vilhena. The methods are all centered on the determination of eigenvalues (or zeros of a polynomial in the case of the LTSN method) of a linear system enabling the solution to be represented as a sum of exponential eigenvectors. Because of the unstable nature of the solution, unless one takes care, such a representation leads to numerical catastrophe. Here, we derive an alternative form of solution to overcome this difficulty for application to deep penetration.

61 RADIATION PROTECTION AND DOSIMETRY↗

On squares of representations of compact Lie algebras

We study how tensor products of representations decompose when restricted from a compact Lie algebra to one of its subalgebras. In particular, we are interested in tensor squares which are tensor products of a representation with itself. We show in a classification-free manner that the sum of multiplicities and the sum of squares of multiplicities in the corresponding decomposition of a tensor square into irreducible representations has to strictly grow when restricted from a compact semisimple Lie algebra to a proper subalgebra. For this purpose, relevant details on tensor products of representations are compiled from the literature. Since the sum of squares of multiplicities is equal to the dimension of the commutant of the tensor-square representation, it can be determined by linear-algebra computations in a scenario where an a priori unknown Lie algebra is given by a set of generators which might not be a linear basis. Hence, our results offer a test to decide if a subalgebra of a compact semisimple Lie algebra is a proper one without calculating the relevant Lie closures, which can be naturally applied in the field of controlled quantum systems.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Hierarchical off-diagonal low-rank approximation of Hessians in inverse problems, with application to ice sheet model initialization

Obtaining lightweight and accurate approximations of discretized objective functional Hessians in inverse problems governed by partial differential equations (PDEs) is essential to make both deterministic and Bayesian statistical large-scale inverse problems computationally tractable. The cubic computational complexity of dense linear algebraic tasks, such as Cholesky factorization, that provide a means to sample Gaussian distributions and determine solutions of Newton linear systems is a computational bottleneck at large-scale. These tasks can be reduced to log-linear complexity by utilizing hierarchical off-diagonal low-rank (HODLR) matrix approximations. In this work, we show that a class of Hessians that arise from inverse problems governed by PDEs are well approximated by the HODLR matrix format. In particular, we study inverse problems governed by PDEs that model the instantaneous viscous flow of ice sheets. In these problems, we seek a spatially distributed basal sliding parameter field such that the flow predicted by the ice sheet model is consistent with ice sheet surface velocity observations. Here, we demonstrate the use of HODLR Hessian approximation to efficiently sample the Laplace approximation of the posterior distribution with covariance further approximated by HODLR matrix compression. Computational studies are performed which illustrate ice sheet problem regimes for which the Gauss–Newton data-misfit Hessian is more efficiently approximated by the HODLR matrix format than the low-rank (LR) format. We then demonstrate that HODLR approximations can be favorable, when compared to global LR approximations, for large-scale problems by studying the data-misfit Hessian associated with inverse problems governed by the first-order Stokes flow model on the Humboldt glacier and Greenland ice sheet.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Optical laboratory solution and error model simulation of a linear time-varying finite element equation

The use of simplified error models to accurately simulate and evaluate the performance of an optical linear-algebra processor is described. The optical architecture used to perform banded matrix-vector products is reviewed, along with a linear dynamic finite-element case study. The laboratory hardware and ac-modulation technique used are presented. The individual processor error-source models and their simulator implementation are detailed. Several significant simplifications are introduced to ease the computational requirements and complexity of the simulations. The error models are verified with a laboratory implementation of the processor, and are used to evaluate its potential performance.

Taylor, B. K.↗

Quantum Spectral Methods for Differential Equations

Recently developed quantum algorithms address computational challenges in numerical analysis by performing linear algebra in Hilbert space. Such algorithms can produce a quantum state proportional to the solution of a d-dimensional system of linear equations or linear differential equations with complexity poly(logd). While several of these algorithms approximate the solution to within ϵ with complexity poly(log(1/ϵ)), no such algorithm was previously known for differential equations with time-dependent coefficients. In this work, we develop a quantum algorithm for linear ordinary differential equations based on so-called spectral methods, an alternative to finite difference methods that approximates the solution globally. Using this approach, we give a quantum algorithm for time-dependent initial and boundary value problems with complexity poly(logd, log(1/ϵ)).

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Newton's method: A link between continuous and discrete solutions of nonlinear problems

Newton's method for nonlinear mechanics problems replaces the governing nonlinear equations by an iterative sequence of linear equations. When the linear equations are linear differential equations, the equations are usually solved by numerical methods. The iterative sequence in Newton's method can exhibit poor convergence properties when the nonlinear problem has multiple solutions for a fixed set of parameters, unless the iterative sequences are aimed at solving for each solution separately. The theory of the linear differential operators is often a better guide for solution strategies in applying Newton's method than the theory of linear algebra associated with the numerical analogs of the differential operators. In fact, the theory for the differential operators can suggest the choice of numerical linear operators. In this paper the method of variation of parameters from the theory of linear ordinary differential equations is examined in detail in the context of Newton's method to demonstrate how it might be used as a guide for numerical solutions.

Thurston, G. A.↗