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At least 379 records · Page 21

Predictions of Separated and Transitional Boundary Layers Under Low-Pressure Turbine Airfoil Conditions Using an Intermittency Transport Equation

A new transport equation for the intermittency factor was proposed to predict separated and transitional boundary layers under low-pressure turbine airfoil conditions. The intermittent behavior of the transitional flows is taken into account and incorporated into computations by modifying the eddy viscosity, t , with the intermittency factor, y. Turbulent quantities are predicted by using Menter s two-equation turbulence model (SST). The intermittency factor is obtained from a transport equation model, which not only can reproduce the experimentally observed streamwise variation of the intermittency in the transition zone, but also can provide a realistic cross-stream variation of the intermittency profile. In this paper, the intermittency model is used to predict a recent separated and transitional boundary layer experiment under low pressure turbine airfoil conditions. The experiment provides detailed measurements of velocity, turbulent kinetic energy and intermittency profiles for a number of Reynolds numbers and freestream turbulent intensity conditions and is suitable for validation purposes. Detailed comparisons of computational results with experimental data are presented and good agreements between the experiments and predictions are obtained.

Suzen, Y. B.↗

An integrated decision support system for TRAC: A proposal

Optimal allocation and usage of resources is a key to effective management. Resources of concern to TRAC are: Manpower (PSY), Money (Travel, contracts), Computing, Data, Models, etc. Management activities of TRAC include: Planning, Programming, Tasking, Monitoring, Updating, and Coordinating. Existing systems are insufficient, not completely automated, manpower intensive, and has the potential for data inconsistency exists. A system is proposed which suggests a means to integrate all project management activities of TRAC through the development of a sophisticated software and by utilizing the existing computing systems and network resources. The systems integration proposal is examined in detail.

Mukkamala, Ravi↗

Challenges of developing an electro-optical system for measuring man's operational envelope

In designing work stations and restraint systems, and in planning tasks to be performed in space, a knowledge of the capabilities of the operator is essential. Answers to such questions as whether a specific control or work surface can be reached from a given restraint and how much force can be applied are of particular interest. A computer-aided design system has been developed for designing and evaluating work stations, etc., and the Anthropometric Measurement Laboratory (AML) has been charged with obtaining the data to be used in design and modeling. Traditional methods of measuring reach and force are very labor intensive and require bulky equipment. The AML has developed a series of electro-optical devices for collecting reach data easily, in computer readable form, with portable systems. The systems developed, their use, and data collected with them are described.

Woolford, B.↗

IOPro: a parallel I/O profiling and visualization framework for high-performance storage systems

Efficient execution of large-scale scientific applications requires high-performance computing systems designed to meet the I/O requirements. To achieve high-performance, such data-intensive parallel applications use a multi-layer layer I/O software stack, which consists of high-level I/O libraries such as PnetCDF and HDF5, the MPI library, and parallel file systems. To design efficient parallel scientific applications, understanding the complicated flow of I/O operations and the involved interactions among the libraries is quintessential. Such comprehension helps identify I/O bottlenecks and thus exploits the potential performance in different layers of the storage hierarchy. To profile the performance of individual components in the I/O stack and to understand complex interactions among them, we have implemented a GUI-based integrated profiling and analysis framework, IOPro. IOPro automatically generates an instrumented I/O stack, runs applications on it, and visualizes detailed statistics based on the user-specified metrics of interest. We present experimental results from two different real-life applications and show how our framework can be used in practice. By generating an end-to-end trace of the whole I/O stack and pinpointing I/O interference, IOPro aids in understanding I/O behavior and improving the I/O performance significantly.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Technique and computer program for calculating photographic film density variations

Film density data that have been digitalized and recorded in binary coded decimal (BCD) format are converted into a number representing the film density difference between the unexposed film border and any point on a photograph by program CONVERT. The difference AVERAGE, the BCD number representing the unexposed film area and the BCD number of a specific data point is calculated and then multiplied by three constants to produce the desired film density difference. The angle off the principal axis of the lens is computed for each data point in order that a correction factor be applied to compensate for atmospheric backscattering differences and light intensity fall-off, inherent in the camera lens system in use. The program is capable of plotting the calculated density differences. The percentage of points in specific density ranges can also be computed.

Ohlhorst, C. W.↗

The high level trigger and express data production at STAR

To meet the demands of the Beam Energy Scan phase-II (BES-II) program, the STAR experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) developed a dual real-time framework consisting of a High Level Trigger (HLT) and an Express Data Production system (xProduction). The HLT operates online within the Data Acquisition (DAQ) chain on a dedicated multi-core CPU cluster with the option to offload compute-intensive kernels to Xeon Phi coprocessors. It uses parallelized algorithms, such as the Cellular Automaton (CA) Track Finder, to perform rapid tracking, vertexing, and event filtering. This allows it to select events of interest in real time and provide immediate feedback on detector and beam conditions. In contrast, the xProduction workflow runs concurrently and independently of the DAQ loop. It applies near offline-quality calibration and reconstruction within hours of data collection. The xProduction input is the express data stream, whose content can be enriched by HLT trigger/priority selections under DAQ/HLT resource constraints, and it uses the STAR calibration/conditions framework, incorporating online calibration/QA information when available. This enables early preliminary physics analysis, including the reconstruction of rare signals, such as hyperons and hypernuclei. It also provides collaboration-wide access to analysis-ready datasets. Together, the HLT and xProduction systems form a complementary architecture: the HLT performs online event selection while the xProduction chain delivers high-quality results within a short amount of time. This integrated framework has enabled the prompt reconstruction of the $^5_Λ$ He hypernucleus with high statistical significance and the efficient processing of hundreds of millions of heavy-ion collision events. In conclusion, its demonstrated scalability and robustness establish a model for future high-luminosity experiments requiring both online event filtering and rapid access to analysis-quality data.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Spectral mapping of soil organic matter

Multispectral remote sensing data were examined for use in the mapping of soil organic matter content. Computer-implemented pattern recognition techniques were used to analyze data collected in May 1969 and May 1970 by an airborne multispectral scanner over a 40-km flightline. Two fields within the flightline were selected for intensive study. Approximately 400 surface soil samples from these fields were obtained for organic matter analysis. The analytical data were used as training sets for computer-implemented analysis of the spectral data. It was found that within the geographical limitations included in this study, multispectral data and automatic data processing techniques could be used very effectively to delineate and map surface soils areas containing different levels of soil organic matter.

Kristof, S. J.↗

Combining Acceleration and Displacement Dependent Modal Frequency Responses Using an MSC/NASTRAN DMAP Alter

Solving for dynamic responses of free-free launch vehicle/spacecraft systems acted upon by buffeting winds is commonly performed throughout the aerospace industry. Due to the unpredictable nature of this wind loading event, these problems are typically solved using frequency response random analysis techniques. To generate dynamic responses for spacecraft with statically-indeterminate interfaces, spacecraft contractors prefer to develop models which have response transformation matrices developed for mode acceleration data recovery. This method transforms spacecraft boundary accelerations and displacements into internal responses. Unfortunately, standard MSC/NASTRAN modal frequency response solution sequences cannot be used to combine acceleration- and displacement-dependent responses required for spacecraft mode acceleration data recovery. External user-written computer codes can be used with MSC/NASTRAN output to perform such combinations, but these methods can be labor and computer resource intensive. Taking advantage of the analytical and computer resource efficiencies inherent within MS C/NASTRAN, a DMAP Alter has been developed to combine acceleration- and displacement-dependent modal frequency responses for performing spacecraft mode acceleration data recovery. The Alter has been used successfully to efficiently solve a common aerospace buffeting wind analysis.

Barnett, Alan R.↗

Compression Techniques for Improved Algorithm Computational Performance

Analysis of thermal data requires the processing of large amounts of temporal image data. The processing of the data for quantitative information can be time intensive especially out in the field where large areas are inspected resulting in numerous data sets. By applying a temporal compression technique, improved algorithm performance can be obtained. In this study, analysis techniques are applied to compressed and non-compressed thermal data. A comparison is made based on computational speed and defect signal to noise.

Zalameda, Joseph N.↗

Using NVMe Gen3 PCIe SSD Cards in High-density Servers for High-performance Big Data Transfer Over Multiple Network Channels

This Technical Note describes how the Zettar team came up with a data transfer cluster design that convincingly proved the feasibility of using high-density servers for high-performance Big Data transfers. It then outlines the tests, operations, and observations that address a potential over-heating concern regarding the use of Non-Volatile Memory Host Controller Interface Specification (NVMHCI aka NVM Express or NVMe) Gen 3 PCIe SSD cards in high-density servers. Finally, it points out the possibility of developing a new generation of high-performance Science DMZ data transfer system for the data-intensive research community and commercial enterprises.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Accelerated Adaptive MGS Phase Retrieval

The Modified Gerchberg-Saxton (MGS) algorithm is an image-based wavefront-sensing method that can turn any science instrument focal plane into a wavefront sensor. MGS characterizes optical systems by estimating the wavefront errors in the exit pupil using only intensity images of a star or other point source of light. This innovative implementation of MGS significantly accelerates the MGS phase retrieval algorithm by using stream-processing hardware on conventional graphics cards. Stream processing is a relatively new, yet powerful, paradigm to allow parallel processing of certain applications that apply single instructions to multiple data (SIMD). These stream processors are designed specifically to support large-scale parallel computing on a single graphics chip. Computationally intensive algorithms, such as the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), are particularly well suited for this computing environment. This high-speed version of MGS exploits commercially available hardware to accomplish the same objective in a fraction of the original time. The exploit involves performing matrix calculations in nVidia graphic cards. The graphical processor unit (GPU) is hardware that is specialized for computationally intensive, highly parallel computation. From the software perspective, a parallel programming model is used, called CUDA, to transparently scale multicore parallelism in hardware. This technology gives computationally intensive applications access to the processing power of the nVidia GPUs through a C/C++ programming interface. The AAMGS (Accelerated Adaptive MGS) software takes advantage of these advanced technologies, to accelerate the optical phase error characterization. With a single PC that contains four nVidia GTX-280 graphic cards, the new implementation can process four images simultaneously to produce a JWST (James Webb Space Telescope) wavefront measurement 60 times faster than the previous code.

Lam, Raymond K.↗

High Energy Physics Network Requirements Review: Two-Year Update

The Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) is the high-performance network user facility for the US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science (SC) and delivers highly reliable data transport capabilities optimized for the requirements of data-intensive science. In essence, ESnet is the circulatory system that enables the DOE science mission by connecting all its laboratories and facilities in the US and abroad. ESnet is funded and stewarded by the Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program and managed and operated by the Scientific Networking Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). ESnet is widely regarded as a global leader in the research and education networking community. ESnet interconnects DOE national laboratories, user facilities, and major experiments so that scientists can use remote instruments and computing resources as well as share data with collaborators, transfer large datasets, and access distributed data repositories. ESnet is specifically built to provide a range of network services tailored to meet the unique requirements of the DOE’s data-intensive science. In July 2023, the Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) and the High Energy Physics program (HEP) of the DOE SC organized an interim ESnet requirements review of HEP-supported activities, to follow up on the work started during the 2020 HEP Network Requirements Review. Preparation for these events included checking back with the key stakeholders: program and facility management, research groups, and technology providers. Each stakeholder group was asked to prepare updates to their previously submitted case study documents, so that ESnet could update the understanding of any changes to the current, near-term, and long-term status, expectations, and processes that will support the science activities of the program.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

HOSS!

The Hall-D Online Skim System (HOSS) was developed to simultaneously solve two issues for the high intensity GlueX experiment. One was to parallelize the writing of raw data files to disk in order to improve bandwidth. The other was to distribute the raw data across multiple compute nodes in order to produce calibration skims of the data online. The highly configurable system employs RDMA, RAM disks, and zeroMQ driven by Python to simultaneously store and process the full high intensity GlueX data stream.

Lawrence, David↗

The moisture budget in relation to convection

An evaluation of the moisture budget in the environment of convective storms is presented by using the unique 3- to 6-h rawinsonde data. Net horizontal and vertical boundary fluxes accounted for most of the large amounts of moisture which were concentrated into convective regions associated with two squall lines that moved through the area during the experiment. The largest values of moisture accumulations were located slightly downwind of the most intense convective activity. Relationships between computed moisture quantities of the moisture budget and radar-observed convection improved when lagging the radar data by 3 h. The residual of moisture which represents all sources and sinks of moisture in the budget equation was largely accounted for by measurements of precipitation.

Scott, R. W.↗

High-throughput terahertz imaging: progress and challenges

Abstract Many exciting terahertz imaging applications, such as non-destructive evaluation, biomedical diagnosis, and security screening, have been historically limited in practical usage due to the raster-scanning requirement of imaging systems, which impose very low imaging speeds. However, recent advancements in terahertz imaging systems have greatly increased the imaging throughput and brought the promising potential of terahertz radiation from research laboratories closer to real-world applications. Here, we review the development of terahertz imaging technologies from both hardware and computational imaging perspectives. We introduce and compare different types of hardware enabling frequency-domain and time-domain imaging using various thermal, photon, and field image sensor arrays. We discuss how different imaging hardware and computational imaging algorithms provide opportunities for capturing time-of-flight, spectroscopic, phase, and intensity image data at high throughputs. Furthermore, the new prospects and challenges for the development of future high-throughput terahertz imaging systems are briefly introduced.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗