SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “Parallelism”

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.

SourceResearch connectionFrom yearThrough year

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

At least 1,369 records · Page 76

All sources NASA NTRS DOE OSTI

DOE OSTI2016

Fast Parallel Stochastic Subspace Algorithms for Large-Scale Ambient Oscillation Monitoring

With the installation of synchrophasors widely across the power grid, measurement-based oscillation monitoring algorithms are becoming increasingly useful in identifying the real-time oscillatory modal properties in power systems. When the number of phasor measurement unit (PMU) channels grows, the computational time of many PMU data based algorithms is dominated by the computational burden in processing large-scale dense matrices. In order to overcome this limitation, this paper presents new formulations and computational strategies for speeding up an ambient oscillation monitoring algorithm, namely, stochastic subspace identification (SSI). Based on previous work, two fast singular value decomposition (SVD) approaches are first applied to the SVD evaluation within the SSI algorithm. Next, block structures are exploited so that the large-scale dense matrix computations can be processed in parallel. This helps in memory savings as well as in overall computational time. Experimental results from three sets of archived data of the western interconnection demonstrate that the new approaches can provide significant speedups while retaining modal estimation accuracy. With proposed fast parallel algorithms, the real-time oscillation monitoring of the large-scale system using hundreds of PMU measurements becomes feasible.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2015

Scalable parallel distance field construction for large-scale applications

Computing distance fields is fundamental to many scientific and engineering applications. Distance fields can be used to direct analysis and reduce data. In this paper, we present a highly scalable method for computing 3D distance fields on massively parallel distributed-memory machines. Anew distributed spatial data structure, named parallel distance tree, is introduced to manage the level sets of data and facilitate surface tracking overtime, resulting in significantly reduced computation and communication costs for calculating the distance to the surface of interest from any spatial locations. Our method supports several data types and distance metrics from real-world applications. We demonstrate its efficiency and scalability on state-of-the-art supercomputers using both large-scale volume datasets and surface models. We also demonstrate in-situ distance field computation on dynamic turbulent flame surfaces for a petascale combustion simulation. In conclusion, our work greatly extends the usability of distance fields for demanding applications.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2017

Concurrent conversation modeling and parallel simulation of the naming game in social networks

The Naming Game is an effective self-organization model to understand the emergence of linguistic consensus and to investigate the system dynamics in a variety of phenomena over social networks of autonomous agents. The Naming Game is an effective description for the evolution of consensus despite the absence of any central coordination or specialized initialization even in large-scale networks. While the classical game is effective in description, it was defined with inherently sequential evaluation semantics over the entire network. Here, we develop a new concurrent model as a relaxation of the classical formulation and express it in a discrete event style of evaluation. Further, with the uncovered concurrency that was absent in the classical algorithm, we map the concurrent model to parallel discrete event simulation. Using a prototype implementation, we present an initial parallel performance study on networks containing hundreds of thousands of individuals, with a decrease in simulation time in the best-observed case from 4800 seconds down to 1400 seconds.

Perumalla, Kalyan↗

DOE OSTI2019

Experimental and Numerical Analysis of Additively Manufactured Coupons With Parallel Channels and Inline Wall Jets

Present paper developed a series of additively manufactured parallel cooling channels with streamwise wall jets inside, which could be suitable for double-wall and near-wall cooling configurations in gas turbine hot section components. The tested coupons consisted of parallel channels, each channel further divided into small chambers using several spanwise separation walls. Height of these walls was kept less than channel height, thus forming a slot with one of the end walls. Coolant entered from one side of channel and formed streamwise wall jet while crossing through the slot over to the downstream chamber. The test coupons were additively manufactured by selective laser sintering (SLS) technique using Inconel 718 alloy. Steady-state heat transfer experiments with constant wall temperature boundary condition were performed to analyze effect of pitch between subsequent slots and blockage ratio (ratio of separation wall height to channel height) on heat transfer. The channel Reynolds number ranged from 1800 to 5000. Numerical simulations were performed using ANSYS cfx solver with SST k–ω turbulence model to obtain detailed understanding of existing flow field. Experimental results showed heat transfer enhancement of up to 6.5 times that of a smooth channel for the highest blockage ratio of 0.75. Numerical results revealed complex flow field which consisted of wall jets along with impingement, separation, and recirculation zones in each chamber. For all configurations, gain in heat transfer was accompanied with high pressure drops. However, coupled with the high heat transfer, this design could lead to potential coolant savings.

Engineering↗

DOE OSTI2021

Hardware-in-the-Loop Investigation of Emissions Challenges in Hybrid Medium- and Heavy-Duty Powertrains Using a Pre-Production Diesel-Electric Parallel Hybrid System With and Without Stop-Start Operation

Hybrid electric powertrains are a growing market in medium- and heavy-duty applications. There is a lack of available information to understand the challenges in the integration of engine platforms into electrified powertrains, such as cold-start, restart, and load-reduction effects on emissions and emission control devices. Results from the Heavy Heavy-Duty Diesel Truck (HHDDT) cycle using a conventional medium-duty diesel engine were compared with those of a parallel hybrid architecture. Oak Ridge National Laboratory in collaboration with the US Department of Energy and Odyne Systems, LLC developed a powertrain in a hardware-in-the-loop environment, integrating the Odyne Systems, LLC medium-duty parallel hybrid system, which was used for the hybrid portion of this study. Experiments under the HHDDT cycle showed increasing improvements in fuel consumption and engine-out emissions with the integration of stop/start, hybrid, and hybrid with stop/start. However, the effects of load reduction and exhaust temperature on the thermal management strategy have shown an increase in fueling in the second part of the HHDDT cycle. Four configurations of medium-duty electrification were studied and contributed to building a unique data set containing combustion, emissions, and system integration data. Each electrification level was compared with the conventional baseline. The calibration of the conventional engine was not altered for this study. Opportunities to tailor the combustion process were identified with the stop/start strategy.

Lerin, Chloe↗

DOE OSTI2014

SU-E-T-448: On the Perturbation Factor P-cav of the Markus Parallel Plate Ion Chambers in Clinical Electron Beams, Monte Carlo Based Reintegration of An Historical Experiment

Purpose: All present dosimetry protocols recommend well-guarded parallel-plate ion chambers for electron dosimetry. For the guard-less Markus chamber an energy dependent fluence perturbation correction pcav is given. This perturbation correction was experimentally determined by van der Plaetsen by comparison of the read-out of a Markus and a NACP chamber, which was assumed to be “perturbation-free”. Aim of the present study is a Monte Carlo based reiteration of this experiment. Methods: Detailed models of four parallel-plate chambers (Roos, Markus, NACP and Advanced Markus) were designed using the Monte Carlo code EGSnrc and placed in a water phantom. For all chambers the dose to the active volume filled with low density water was calculated for 13 clinical electron spectra (E{sub 0}=6-21 MeV) at the depth of maximum and at the reference depth under reference conditions. In all cases the chamber's reference point was positioned at the depth of measurement. Moreover, the dose to water DW was calculated in a small water voxel positioned at the same depth. Results: The calculated dose ratio D{sub NACP}/D{sub Markus}, which according to van der Plaetsen reflects the fluence perturbation correction of the Markus chamber, deviates less from unity than the values given by van der Plaetsen's but exhibits a similar energy dependence. The same holds for the dose ratios of the other well guarded chambers. But, in comparison to water, the Markus chamber reveals the smallest overall perturbation correction which is nearly energy independent at both investigated depths. Conclusion: The simulations principally confirm the energy dependence of the dose ratio D{sub NACP}/D{sub Markus} as published by van der Plaetsen. But, as shown by our simulations of the ratio D{sub W}/D{sub Markus}, the conclusion drawn in all dosimetry protocols is questionable: in contrast to all well-guarded chambers the guard-less Markus chamber reveals the smallest overall perturbation correction and also the smallest energy dependence.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

DOE OSTI2014

Monte Carlo study of the depth-dependent fluence perturbation in parallel-plate ionization chambers in electron beams

Purpose: The electron fluence inside a parallel-plate ionization chamber positioned in a water phantom and exposed to a clinical electron beam deviates from the unperturbed fluence in water in absence of the chamber. One reason for the fluence perturbation is the well-known “inscattering effect,” whose physical cause is the lack of electron scattering in the gas-filled cavity. Correction factors determined to correct for this effect have long been recommended. However, more recent Monte Carlo calculations have led to some doubt about the range of validity of these corrections. Therefore, the aim of the present study is to reanalyze the development of the fluence perturbation with depth and to review the function of the guard rings. Methods: Spatially resolved Monte Carlo simulations of the dose profiles within gas-filled cavities with various radii in clinical electron beams have been performed in order to determine the radial variation of the fluence perturbation in a coin-shaped cavity, to study the influences of the radius of the collecting electrode and of the width of the guard ring upon the indicated value of the ionization chamber formed by the cavity, and to investigate the development of the perturbation as a function of the depth in an electron-irradiated phantom. The simulations were performed for a primary electron energy of 6 MeV. Results: The Monte Carlo simulations clearly demonstrated a surprisingly large in- and outward electron transport across the lateral cavity boundary. This results in a strong influence of the depth-dependent development of the electron field in the surrounding medium upon the chamber reading. In the buildup region of the depth-dose curve, the in–out balance of the electron fluence is positive and shows the well-known dose oscillation near the cavity/water boundary. At the depth of the dose maximum the in–out balance is equilibrated, and in the falling part of the depth-dose curve it is negative, as shown here the first time. The influences of both the collecting electrode radius and the width of the guard ring are reflecting the deep radial penetration of the electron transport processes into the gas-filled cavities and the need for appropriate corrections of the chamber reading. New values for these corrections have been established in two forms, one converting the indicated value into the absorbed dose to water in the front plane of the chamber, the other converting it into the absorbed dose to water at the depth of the effective point of measurement of the chamber. In the Appendix, the in–out imbalance of electron transport across the lateral cavity boundary is demonstrated in the approximation of classical small-angle multiple scattering theory. Conclusions: The in–out electron transport imbalance at the lateral boundaries of parallel-plate chambers in electron beams has been studied with Monte Carlo simulation over a range of depth in water, and new correction factors, covering all depths and implementing the effective point of measurement concept, have been developed.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

DOE OSTI2015

Parallel transmit excitation at 1.5 T based on the minimization of a driving function for device heating

Purpose: To provide a rapid method to reduce the radiofrequency (RF) E-field coupling and consequent heating in long conductors in an interventional MRI (iMRI) setup. Methods: A driving function for device heating (W) was defined as the integration of the E-field along the direction of the wire and calculated through a quasistatic approximation. Based on this function, the phases of four independently controlled transmit channels were dynamically changed in a 1.5 T MRI scanner. During the different excitation configurations, the RF induced heating in a nitinol wire immersed in a saline phantom was measured by fiber-optic temperature sensing. Additionally, a minimization of W as a function of phase and amplitude values of the different channels and constrained by the homogeneity of the RF excitation field (B{sub 1}) over a region of interest was proposed and its results tested on the benchtop. To analyze the validity of the proposed method, using a model of the array and phantom setup tested in the scanner, RF fields and SAR maps were calculated through finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations. In addition to phantom experiments, RF induced heating of an active guidewire inserted in a swine was also evaluated. Results: In the phantom experiment, heating at the tip of the device was reduced by 92% when replacing the body coil by an optimized parallel transmit excitation with same nominal flip angle. In the benchtop, up to 90% heating reduction was measured when implementing the constrained minimization algorithm with the additional degree of freedom given by independent amplitude control. The computation of the optimum phase and amplitude values was executed in just 12 s using a standard CPU. The results of the FDTD simulations showed similar trend of the local SAR at the tip of the wire and measured temperature as well as to a quadratic function of W, confirming the validity of the quasistatic approach for the presented problem at 64 MHz. Imaging and heating reduction of the guidewire were successfully performed in vivo with the proposed hardware and phase control. Conclusions: Phantom and in vivo data demonstrated that additional degrees of freedom in a parallel transmission system can be used to control RF induced heating in long conductors. A novel constrained optimization approach to reduce device heating was also presented that can be run in just few seconds and therefore could be added to an iMRI protocol to improve RF safety.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2015

SU-E-T-350: Effective Point of Measurement and Total Perturbation Correction P for Parallel-Plate Ion Chambers in High-Energy Photon Beams

Purpose: This paper aims to determine the effective point of measurement and the total perturbation correction p of parallel-plate chambers for clinical photon dosimetry. Methods: The effective point of measurement (EPOM) was calculated using the EGSnrc Monte Carlo code system with the EGSnrc user code egs- chamber. Depth dose curves of the ionization chambers were calculated in a water phantom for several high energy photon spectra (4, 6, 10, 15, 18 MV-X). Different normalization criterions (normalization to the maximum of the depth dose curve and normalization to the value in 10 cm depth) have been applied. The EPOM was determined by shifting the normalized depth dose curve of a small water voxel against the depth ionization curve until the disagreement (calculated by the root mean square deviation) reaches a minimum. In addition, the total perturbation correction p was calculated by the ratio of the dose to water and the product of the dose determined in the chamber and the water to air stopping power ratio. Results: The EPOM varied slightly depending on the chosen normalization criterion. For all chambers the necessary shift of the EPOM decreased linearly with increasing beam quality specifier TPR{sub 20/10}. For the Roos and NACP chamber, the results were positive suggesting that the chambers need to be shifted towards the focus. For the Markus chamber, the required shift was negative and for the Advanced Markus chamber partly negative and partly positive. The total perturbation correction p was almost independent of the depth. Only for regions below 1 cm the perturbation correction deviated significantly from unity. Conclusion: In the present study, the effective point of measurement and the total perturbation correction p was determined for four parallel-plate ionization chambers and five clinical relevant photon spectra. Applying the calculated EPOM, the residual perturbation correction p was mostly depth independent.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2021

Parallel molecular mechanisms for enzyme temperature adaptation

The mechanisms that underly the adaptation of enzyme activities and stabilities to temperature are fundamental to our understanding of molecular evolution and how enzymes work. Here, we investigate the molecular and evolutionary mechanisms of enzyme temperature adaption, combining deep mechanistic studies with comprehensive sequence analyses of thousands of enzymes. We show that temperature adaptation in ketosteroid isomerase (KSI) arises primarily from one residue change with limited, local epistasis, and we establish the underlying physical mechanisms. This residue change occurs in diverse KSI backgrounds, suggesting parallel adaptation to temperature. Furthermore, we identify residues associated with organismal growth temperature across 1005 diverse bacterial enzyme families, suggesting widespread parallel adaptation to temperature. We assess the residue properties, molecular interactions, and interaction networks that appear to underly temperature adaptation.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

DOE OSTI2016

Keldysh formalism for multiple parallel worlds

We present a compact and self-contained review of the recently developed Keldysh formalism for multiple parallel worlds. The formalism has been applied to consistent quantum evaluation of the flows of informational quantities, in particular, to the evaluation of Renyi and Shannon entropy flows. We start with the formulation of the standard and extended Keldysh techniques in a single world in a form convenient for our presentation. We explain the use of Keldysh contours encompassing multiple parallel worlds. In the end, we briefly summarize the concrete results obtained with the method.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

DOE OSTI2016

Algorithm for solving the linear Cauchy problem for large systems of ordinary differential equations with the use of parallel computations

An algorithm for solving the linear Cauchy problem for large systems of ordinary differential equations is presented. The algorithm for systems of first-order differential equations is implemented in the EDELWEISS code with the possibility of parallel computations on supercomputers employing the MPI (Message Passing Interface) standard for the data exchange between parallel processes. The solution is represented by a series of orthogonal polynomials on the interval [0, 1]. The algorithm is characterized by simplicity and the possibility to solve nonlinear problems with a correction of the operator in accordance with the solution obtained in the previous iterative process.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2023

Parallel Element-based Algebraic Multigrid for H (c url ) and H (div) Problems Using the ParELAG Library

This paper presents the use of element-based algebraic multigrid (AMGe) hierarchies, implemented in the ParELAG (Parallel Element Agglomeration Algebraic Multigrid Upscaling and Solvers) library, to produce multilevel preconditioners and solvers for H (c url ) and H (div) formulations. ParELAG constructs hierarchies of compatible nested spaces, forming an exact de Rham sequence on each level. This allows the application of hybrid smoothers on all levels and AMS (Auxiliary-space Maxwell Solver) or ADS (Auxiliary-space Divergence Solver) on the coarsest levels, obtaining complete multigrid cycles. Numerical results are presented, showing the parallel performance of the proposed methods. As a part of the exposition, this paper demonstrates some of the capabilities of ParELAG and outlines some of the components and procedures within the library.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2013

Reducing the bulk of the bulk synchronous parallel model

For over two decades the dominant means for enabling portable performance of computational science and engineering applications on parallel processing architectures has been the bulk-synchronous parallel programming (BSP) model. Code developers, motivated by performance considerations to minimize the number of messages transmitted, have typically pursued a strategy of aggregating message data into fewer, larger messages. Emerging and future high-performance architectures, especially those seen as targeting Exascale capabilities, provide motivation and capabilities for revisiting this approach. In this paper we explore alternative configurations within the context of a large-scale complex multi-physics application and a proxy that represents its behavior, presenting results that demonstrate some important advantages as the number of processors increases in scale.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2018

Parallel Ellipsoidal Perfectly Matched Layers for Acoustic Helmholtz Problems on Exterior Domains

Exterior acoustic problems occur in a wide range of applications, making the finite element analysis of such problems a common practice in the engineering community. Various methods for truncating infinite exterior domains have been developed, including absorbing boundary conditions, infinite elements, and more recently, perfectly matched layers (PML). PML are gaining popularity due to their generality, ease of implementation, and effectiveness as an absorbing boundary condition. PML formulations have been developed in Cartesian, cylindrical, and spherical geometries, but not ellipsoidal. In addition, the parallel solution of PML formulations with iterative solvers for the solution of the Helmholtz equation, and how this compares with more traditional strategies such as infinite elements, has not been adequately investigated. In this study, we present a parallel, ellipsoidal PML formulation for acoustic Helmholtz problems. To faciliate the meshing process, the ellipsoidal PML layer is generated with an on-the-fly mesh extrusion. Though the complex stretching is defined along ellipsoidal contours, we modify the Jacobian to include an additional mapping back to Cartesian coordinates in the weak formulation of the finite element equations. This allows the equations to be solved in Cartesian coordinates, which is more compatible with existing finite element software, but without the necessity of dealing with corners in the PML formulation. Herein we also compare the conditioning and performance of the PML Helmholtz problem with infinite element approach that is based on high order basis functions. On a set of representative exterior acoustic examples, we show that high order infinite element basis functions lead to an increasing number of Helmholtz solver iterations, whereas for PML the number of iterations remains constant for the same level of accuracy. Finally, this provides an additional advantage of PML over the infinite element approach.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

DOE OSTI2015

Comparative I/O workload characterization of two leadership class storage clusters. In: PDSW '15 Proceedings of the 10th Parallel Data Storage Workshop

The Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) is a leader in large-scale parallel file system development, design, deployment and continuous operation. For the last decade, the OLCF has designed and deployed two large center-wide parallel file systems. The first instantiation, Spider 1, served the Jaguar supercomputer and its predecessor, Spider 2, now serves the Titan supercomputer, among many other OLCF computational resources. The OLCF has been rigorously collecting file and storage system statistics from these Spider systems since their transition to production state. In this paper we present the collected I/O workload statistics from the Spider 2 system and compare it to the Spider 1 data. Our analysis show that the Spider 2 workload is more more write-heavy I/O compared to Spider 1 (75% vs. 60%, respectively). The data also show the OLCF storage policies such as periodic purges are effectively managing the capacity resource of Spider 2. Furthermore, due to improvements in tdm_multipath and ib_srp software, we are utilizing the Spider 2 system bandwidth and latency resources more effectively. The Spider 2 bandwidth usage statistics shows that our system is working within the design specifications. However, it is also evident that our scientific applications can be more effectively served by a burst buffer storage layer. All the data has been collected by monitoring tools developed for the Spider ecosystem. We believe the observed data set and insights will help us better design the next-generation Spider file and storage system. It will also be helpful to the larger community for building more effective large-scale file and storage systems.

Gunasekaran, Raghul↗

DOE OSTI2016

Identifying the Root Causes of Wait States in Large-Scale Parallel Applications

Driven by growing application requirements and accelerated by current trends in microprocessor design, the number of processor cores on modern supercomputers is increasing from generation to generation. However, load or communication imbalance prevents many codes from taking advantage of the available parallelism, as delays of single processes may spread wait states across the entire machine. Moreover, when employing complex point-to-point communication patterns, wait states may propagate along far-reaching cause-effect chains that are hard to track manually and that complicate an assessment of the actual costs of an imbalance. Building on earlier work by Meira Jr. et al., we present a scalable approach that identifies program wait states and attributes their costs in terms of resource waste to their original cause. Ultimately, by replaying event traces in parallel both forward and backward, we can identify the processes and call paths responsible for the most severe imbalances even for runs with hundreds of thousands of processes.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2022

Power Converter Circuit Design Automation using Parallel Monte Carlo Tree Search

The tidal waves of modern electronic/electrical devices have led to increasing demands for ubiquitous application-specific power converters. A conventional manual design procedure of such power converters is computation- and labor-intensive, which involves selecting and connecting component devices, tuning component-wise parameters and control schemes, and iteratively evaluating and optimizing the design. To automate and speed up this design process, we propose an automatic framework that designs custom power converters from design specifications using Monte Carlo Tree Search. Specifically, the framework embraces the upper-confidence-bound-tree (UCT), a variant of Monte Carlo Tree Search, to automate topology space exploration with circuit design specification-encoded reward signals. Moreover, our UCT-based approach can exploit small offline data via the specially designed default policy and can run in parallel to accelerate topology space exploration. Further, it utilizes a hybrid circuit evaluation strategy to substantially reduce design evaluation costs. Empirically, we demonstrated that our framework could generate energy-efficient circuit topologies for various target voltage conversion ratios. Compared to existing automatic topology optimization strategies, the proposed method is much more computationally efficient --- the sequential version can generate topologies with the same quality while being up to 67% faster. Here, the parallelization schemes can further achieve high speedups compared to the sequential version.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗