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At least 487 records · Page 27

Deploy threading in Nalu solver stack

The goal of the ExaWind project is to enable predictive simulations of wind farms composed of many MW-scale turbines situated in complex terrain. Predictive simulations will require computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations for which the mesh resolves the geometry of the turbines, and captures the rotation and large deflections of blades. Whereas such simulations for a single turbine are arguably petascale class, multi-turbine wind farm simulations will require exascale-class resources. The primary code in the ExaWind project is Nalu, which is an unstructured-grid solver for the acousticallyincompressible Navier-Stokes equations, and mass continuity is maintained through pressure projection. The model consists of the mass-continuity Poisson-type equation for pressure and a momentum equation for the velocity. For such modeling approaches, simulation times are dominated by linear-system setup and solution for the continuity and momentum systems. For the ExaWind challenge problem, the moving meshes greatly affect overall solver costs as re-initialization of matrices and re-computation of preconditioners is required at every time step In this Milestone, we examine the effect of threading on the solver stack performance against flat-MPI results obtained from previous milestones using Haswell performance data full-turbine simulations. Whereas the momentum equations are solved only with the Trilinos solvers, we investigate two algebraic-multigrid preconditioners for the continuity equations: Trilinos/Muelu and HYPRE/BoomerAMG. These two packages embody smoothed-aggregation and classical Ruge-Stiiben AMG methods, respectively. In our FY18 Q2 report, we described our efforts to improve setup and solve of the continuity equations under flat-MPI parallelism. While significant improvement was demonstrated in the solve phase, setup times remained larger than expected. Starting with the optimized settings described in the Q2 report, we explore here simulation performance where OpenMP threading is employed in the solver stack. For Trilinos, threading is acheived through the Kokkos abstraction where, whereas HYPRE/BoomerAMG employs straight OpenMP. We examined results for our mid-resolution baseline turbine simulation configuration (229M DOF). Simulations on 2048 Haswell cores explored the effect of decreasing the number of MPI ranks while increasing the number of threads. Both HYPRE and Trilinos exhibited similar overal solution times, and both showed dramatic increases in simulation time in the shift from MPI ranks to OpenMP threads. This increase is attributed to the large amount of work per MPI rank starting at the single-thread configuration. Decreasing MPI ranks, while increasing threads, may be increasing simulation time due to thread synchronization and start-up overhead contributing to the latency and serial time in the model. These result showed that an MPI+OpenMP parallel decomposition will be more effective as the amount per MPI rank computation per MPI rank decreases and the communication latency increases. This idea was demonstrated in a strong scaling study of our low-resolution baseline model (29M DOF) with the Trilinos-HYPRE configuration. While MPI-only results showed scaling improvement out to about 1536 cores, engaging threading carried scaling improvements out to 4128 cores — roughly 7000 DOF per core. This is an important result as improved strong scaling is needed for simulations to be executed over sufficiently long simulated durations (i.e., for many timesteps). In addition to threading work described above, the team examined solver-performance improvements by exploring communication-overhead in the HYPRE-GMRES implementation through a communicationoptimal- GMRE algorithm (CO-GMRES), and offloading compute-intensive solver actions to GPUs. To those ends, a HYPRE mini-app was allow us to easily test different solver approaches and HYPRE parameter settings without running the entire Nalu code. With GPU acceleration on the Summitdev supercomputer, a 20x speedup was achieved for the overall preconditioner and solver execution time for the mini-app. A study on Haswell processors showed that CO-GMRES provides benefits as one increases MPI ranks.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

Modified Denavit-Hartenberg parameters for better location of joint axis systems in robot arms

The Denavit-Hartenberg parameters define the relative location of successive joint axis systems in a robot arm. A recent justifiable criticism is that one of these parameters becomes extremely large when two successive joints have near-parallel rotational axes. Geometrically, this parameter then locates a joint axis system at an excessive distance from the robot arm and, computationally, leads to an ill-conditioned transformation matrix. In this paper, a simple modification (which results from constraining a transverse vector between successive joint rotational axes to be normal to one of the rotational axes, instead of both) overcomes this criticism and favorably locates the joint axis system. An example is given for near-parallel rotational axes of the elbow and shoulder joints in a robot arm. The regular and modified parameters are extracted by an algebraic method with simulated measurement data. Unlike the modified parameters, extracted values of the regular parameters are very sensitive to measurement accuracy.

Barker, L. K.↗

Unified formulation of dynamics for serial rigid multibody systems

There has been a growing interest in the development of new and efficient algorithms for multibody dynamics in recent years. Serial rigid multibody systems form the basic subcomponents of general multibody systems, and a variety of algorithms to solve the serial chain forward dynamics problem have been proposed. In this paper, the economy of representation and analysis tools provided by the spatial operator algebra are used to clarify the inherent structure of these algorithms, to identify those that are similar, and to study the relationships among the ones that are distinct. For the purposes of this study, the algorithms are categorized into three classes: algorithms that require the explicit computation of the mass matrix, algorithms that are completely recursive in nature, and algorithms of intermediate complexity. In addition, alternative factorizations for the mass matrix and closed form expressions for its inverse are derived. These results provide a unifying perspective, within which these diverse dynamics algorithms arise naturally as a consequence of a progressive exploitation of the structure of the mass matrix.

Jain, Abhinandan↗

Modeling Sound Propagation Through Non-Axisymmetric Jets

A method for computing the far-field adjoint Green's function of the generalized acoustic analogy equations under a locally parallel mean flow approximation is presented. The method is based on expanding the mean-flow-dependent coefficients in the governing equation and the scalar Green's function in truncated Fourier series in the azimuthal direction and a finite difference approximation in the radial direction in circular cylindrical coordinates. The combined spectral/finite difference method yields a highly banded system of algebraic equations that can be efficiently solved using a standard sparse system solver. The method is applied to test cases, with mean flow specified by analytical functions, corresponding to two noise reduction concepts of current interest: the offset jet and the fluid shield. Sample results for the Green's function are given for these two test cases and recommendations made as to the use of the method as part of a RANS-based jet noise prediction code.

Leib, Stewart J.↗

Strict parabolicity of the multifractal spectrum at the Anderson transition

Using the well-known “algebra of multifractality,” we derive the functional equation for anomalous dimensions Δ{sub q}, whose solution Δ = χq(q–1) corresponds to strict parabolicity of the multifractal spectrum. This result demonstrates clearly that a correspondence of the nonlinear σ-models with the initial disordered systems is not exact.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

A fully vectorized numerical solution of the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations

A vectorizable algorithm is presented for the implicit finite difference solution of the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations in general curvilinear coordinates. The unsteady Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes equations solved are in two dimension and non-conservative primitive variable form. A two-layer algebraic eddy viscosity turbulence model is used to incorporate the effects of turbulence. Two momentum equations and a Poisson pressure equation, which is obtained by taking the divergence of the momentum equations and satisfying the continuity equation, are solved simultaneously at each time step. An elliptic grid generation approach is used to generate a boundary conforming coordinate system about an airfoil. The governing equations are expressed in terms of the curvilinear coordinates and are solved on a uniform rectangular computational domain. A checkerboard SOR, which can effectively utilize the computer architectural concept of vector processing, is used for iterative solution of the governing equations.

Patel, N.↗

User Manual for Beta Version of TURBO-GRD: A Software System for Interactive Two-Dimensional Boundary/ Field Grid Generation, Modification, and Refinement

TURBO-GRD is a software system for interactive two-dimensional boundary/field grid generation. modification, and refinement. Its features allow users to explicitly control grid quality locally and globally. The grid control can be achieved interactively by using control points that the user picks and moves on the workstation monitor or by direct stretching and refining. The techniques used in the code are the control point form of algebraic grid generation, a damped cubic spline for edge meshing and parametric mapping between physical and computational domains. It also performs elliptic grid smoothing and free-form boundary control for boundary geometry manipulation. Internal block boundaries are constructed and shaped by using Bezier curve. Because TURBO-GRD is a highly interactive code, users can read in an initial solution, display its solution contour in the background of the grid and control net, and exercise grid modification using the solution contour as a guide. This process can be called an interactive solution-adaptive grid generation.

Choo, Yung K.↗

Evaluation of expressions involving higher order derivations

The local geometric properties of a nonlinear control system defined by vector fields E(sub 1),..., E(sub M) are determined by the algebraic properties of the iterated Lie brackets of the E(sub j)'s. The problem of rewriting expressions is examined involving the E(sub j)'s in terms of the D(sub mu)'s in such a way as to handle effectively any cancellation occurring due to commuting of the D(sub mu)'s. A data structure is introduced which allows us to organize the computation to take advantage of the symmetries in the expression and reduce the operation count.

Grossman, Robert↗

Mars 2020 Reconstructed Aerothermal Environments and Design Margins

The Mars 2020 aeroshell's thermal protection system was nearly identical to the Mars Science Laboratory system that successfully completed its mission for the Curiosity rover's landing in 2012. It was predicted that, like Mars Science Laboratory, the Mars 2020 heatshield would experience boundary layer transition and that the thermal protection system would provide sufficient material thickness margins against the aerothermal environments, even after adding radiative heating that was not included for Mars Science Laboratory. The Mars 2020 flight instrumentation suite included heatshield sensors similar to Mars Science Laboratory and new backshell measurements. A full set of surface pressure and in-depth temperature data were collected during atmospheric entry. This paper provides an initial analysis of the flight data and focuses on the reconstructed total surface heat flux inferred from the measured temperatures. Turbulent boundary layer conditions again were observed on the Mars 2020 heatshield, and the temperatures at all eleven heatshield and six backshell thermocouple in-depth sensor locations were well within system capabilities due to favorable entry conditions and conservative uncertainties. New computational fluid dynamics results on the reconstructed entry trajectory are compared to the measured surface pressures and reconstructed total heat fluxes. The predicted heatshield surface pressures at six locations match the data qualitatively and quantitatively well, as expected. Smooth-wall laminar heating predictions prior to boundary layer transition fall above the reconstructed heating on the heatshield. After the observed boundary layer transition time, total heat flux based on algebraic turbulence model calculations generally match the heat flux trends relative to one another. The convective heat flux was predicted to constitute the majority of the total heating. On the backshell, smooth-wall laminar total heat flux predictions generally exceed the reconstructed total heating at six locations. At each of these locations, it is estimated that radiative heating provided almost all of the total heating. The Mars 2020 as-flown aerothermal environments were well below the design levels for all measurement locations due to conservative design assumptions and a stressing design trajectory.

Mars 2020↗

Mars 2020 Reconstructed Aerothermal Environments and Design Margins

The Mars 2020 aeroshell's thermal protection system was nearly identical to the Mars Science Laboratory system that successfully completed its mission for the Curiosity rover's landing in 2012. It was predicted that, like Mars Science Laboratory, the Mars 2020 heatshield would experience boundary layer transition and that the thermal protection system would provide sufficient material thickness margins against the aerothermal environments, even after adding radiative heating that was not included for Mars Science Laboratory. The Mars 2020 flight instrumentation suite included heatshield sensors similar to Mars Science Laboratory and new backshell measurements. A full set of surface pressure and in-depth temperature data were collected during atmospheric entry. This paper provides an initial analysis of the flight data and focuses on the reconstructed total surface heat flux inferred from the measured temperatures. Turbulent boundary layer conditions again were observed on the Mars 2020 heatshield, and the temperatures at all eleven heatshield and six backshell thermocouple in-depth sensor locations were well within system capabilities due to favorable entry conditions and conservative uncertainties. New computational fluid dynamics results on the reconstructed entry trajectory are compared to the measured surface pressures and reconstructed total heat fluxes. The predicted heatshield surface pressures at six locations match the data qualitatively and quantitatively well, as expected. Smooth-wall laminar heating predictions prior to boundary layer transition fall above the reconstructed heating on the heatshield. After the observed boundary layer transition time, total heat flux based on algebraic turbulence model calculations generally match the heat flux trends relative to one another. The convective heat flux was predicted to constitute the majority of the total heating. On the backshell, smooth-wall laminar total heat flux predictions generally exceed the reconstructed total heating at six locations. At each of these locations, it is estimated that radiative heating provided almost all of the total heating. The Mars 2020 as-flown aerothermal environments were well below the design levels for all measurement locations due to conservative design assumptions and a stressing design trajectory.

Mars 2020↗

Finite Combinatorial Generation of Metabelian T-Ideal

In this work, we develop our idea on the construction of a system of combinatorial generators in a T-ideal of a free associative algebra, which is a full analogy of a Gröbner–Shirshov basis in a polynomial ideal. We prove a theorem on multilinear monomials that enables us to establish the existence of a finite set of combinatorial generators in a metabelian T-ideal.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Strong-Weak Duality via Jordan-Wigner Transformation: Using Fermionic Methods for Strongly Correlated su(2) Spin Systems

The Jordan-Wigner transformation establishes a duality between $su(2)$ and fermionic algebras. We present qualitative arguments and numerical evidence that when mapping spins to fermions, the transformation makes strong correlation weaker, as demonstrated by the Hartree-Fock approximation to the transformed Hamiltonian. This result can be rationalized in terms of rank reduction of spin shift terms when transformed to fermions. Conversely, the mapping of fermions to qubits makes strong correlation stronger, complicating its solution when one uses qubit-based correlators. The presence of string operators poses challenges to the implementation of quantum chemistry methods on classical computers, but these can be dealt with using established techniques of low computational cost. Here, our proof of principle results for XXZ and J1-J2 Heisenberg (in 1D and 2D) indicate that the JW transformed fermionic Hamiltonian has reduced complexity in key regions of their phase diagrams, and provides a better starting point for addressing challenging spin problems.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗

Block Preconditioners for Stable Mixed Nodal and Edge finite element Representations of Incompressible Resistive MHD

The scalable iterative solution of strongly coupled three-dimensional incompressible resistive magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) equations is quite challenging because disparate time scales arise from the electromagnetics, the hydrodynamics, as well as the coupling between these systems. This study considers a mixed finite element discretization of a dual saddle point formulation of the incompressible resistive MHD equations using a stable nodal (Q2/Q1) discretization for the hydrodynamics and a stable edge-node discretization of a reduced form of the Maxwell equations. This paper introduces new approximate block factorization preconditioners for this system which reduce the system to approximate Schur complement systems that can be solved using algebraic multilevel methods. These preconditioners include a new augmentation-based approximation for the magnetic induction saddle point system as well as efficient approximations of the Schur complements that arise from the complex coupling between the Navier--Stokes equations and the Maxwell equations.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Report on hypre performance on AMD GPUs

In this report, the performance of the algebraic multigrid solver used as a preconditioner for conjugate gradient is investigated on 2 nodes of Spock, an early access system at ORNL with 4 MI-100 GPUs and a 64-core Rome CPU per node. We compare GPU and CPU performance for three different diffusion problems using increasing problem sizes.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Finite difference grid generation by multivariate blending function interpolation

The General Interpolants Method (GIM) code which solves the multidimensional Navier-Stokes equations for arbitrary geometric domains is described. The geometry module in the GIM code generates two and three dimensional grids over specified flow regimes, establishes boundary condition information and computes finite difference analogs for use in the GIM code numerical solution module. The technique can be classified as an algebraic equation approach. The geometry package uses multivariate blending function interpolation of vector-values functions which define the shapes of the edges and surfaces bounding the flow domain. By employing blending functions which conform to the cardinality conditions the flow domain may be mapped onto a unit square (2-D) or unit cube (3-D), thus producing an intrinsic coordinate system for the region of interest. The intrinsic coordinate system facilitates grid spacing control to allow for optimum distribution of nodes in the flow domain.

Anderson, P. G.↗

Slip Validation and Prediction for Mars Exploration Rovers

This paper presents a novel technique to validate and predict the rover slips on Martian surface for NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers. Different from the traditional approach, the proposed method uses the actual velocity profile of the wheels and the digital elevation map (DEM) from the stereo images of the terrain to formulate simplified equations of motion of the rovers. A weighted factor to the wheel-ground speed from the empirical data comprises the velocity equations of the simplified differential-algebraic system of the rover motion. Applying the discretization operator to these equations, the full kinematics state of the rover is then resolved by the configuration kinematics solution in the Robot Sequencing and Visualization Program (RSVP). This method produced accurate simulation of the rover movements compared with these of the earth testing vehicle. Using the telemetry from the onboard Visual Odometry, the simulated rover path also compares well with the actual track of the vehicle. Preliminary results indicated that the proposed computational method is very effective in planning the path of the rovers on the high-slope areas.

Mars Rovers↗

Scalable Approaches to Selecting Key Entities in Large Networked Infrastructure Systems

This work aims at bringing advances in discrete optimization algorithms to solving practical engineering problems at scale. Often times, in many engineering design problems, there is a need to select a small set of influential or representative elements from a large ground set of entities in an optimal fashion. Submodular optimization provides for a formal way to solve such problems. Common examples with infrastructure systems involve sensor placement and identification of key entities with certain objectives. However, scaling these approaches to large infrastructure systems can be challenging because of the high computational complexity of the overall framework that include the optimization algorithms as well as high-complexity compute-oracles that provide the necessary objective function values. In this work, we explore a well-studied and widely-applicable paradigm, namely leader-selection in a multi-agent networked setting in the context of scalable methodologies. We demonstrate novel frameworks that utilize variations of accelerated submodular optimization algorithms along with linear-algebraic methods that can help accelerate the oracle computations. We further explore this combination in conjunction with graph partitioning paradigms to take advantage of the accelerated algorithms in a distributed setting. Finally we demonstrate the key findings on a practical problem in an operational setting. For this, we leverage an example road network with approximately 18k nodes and 27k edges in a traffic control application, where we seek a limited number of k=200 key intersections. This problem can be solved in a serial setting in just under 5 hours providing more than 2 orders of magnitude speed-up over methods that do not consider acceleration techniques.

Visweswara Sathanur, Arun↗

Megawatt Electromagnetic Plasma Propulsion

The NASA Glenn Research Center program in megawatt level electric propulsion is centered on electromagnetic acceleration of quasi-neutral plasmas. Specific concepts currently being examined are the Magnetoplasmadynamic (MPD) thruster and the Pulsed Inductive Thruster (PIT). In the case of the MPD thruster, a multifaceted approach of experiments, computational modeling, and systems-level models of self field MPD thrusters is underway. The MPD thruster experimental research consists of a 1-10 MWe, 2 ms pulse-forming-network, a vacuum chamber with two 32 diffusion pumps, and voltage, current, mass flow rate, and thrust stand diagnostics. Current focus is on obtaining repeatable thrust measurements of a Princeton Benchmark type self field thruster operating at 0.5-1 gls of argon. Operation with hydrogen is the ultimate goal to realize the increased efficiency anticipated using the lighter gas. Computational modeling is done using the MACH2 MHD code, which can include real gas effects for propellants of interest to MPD operation. The MACH2 code has been benchmarked against other MPD thruster data, and has been used to create a point design for a 3000 second specific impulse (Isp) MPD thruster. This design is awaiting testing in the experimental facility. For the PIT, a computational investigation using MACH2 has been initiated, with experiments awaiting further funding. Although the calculated results have been found to be sensitive to the initial ionization assumptions, recent results have agreed well with experimental data. Finally, a systems level self-field MPD thruster model has been developed that allows for a mission planner or system designer to input Isp and power level into the model equations and obtain values for efficiency, mass flow rate, and input current and voltage. This model emphasizes algebraic simplicity to allow its incorporation into larger trajectory or system optimization codes. The systems level approach will be extended to the pulsed inductive thruster and other electrodeless thrusters at a future date.

Gilland, James↗