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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.

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131 records · Page 8

Tail queues: A multi-threaded matching architecture

As we approach exascale, computational parallelism will have to drastically increase in order to meet throughput targets. Many–core architectures have exacerbated this problem by trading reduced clock speeds, core complexity, and computation throughput for increasing parallelism. This presents two major challenges for communication libraries such as MPI: the library must leverage the performance advantages of thread level parallelism and avoid the scalability problems associated with increasing the number of processes to that scale. Hybrid programming models, such as MPI+X, have been proposed to address these challenges. MPI THREAD MULTIPLE is MPI's thread safe mode. While there has been work to optimize it, it largely remains non–performant in most implementations. While current applications avoid MPI multithreading due to performance concerns, it is expected to be utilized in future applications. One of the major synchronous data structures required by MPI is the matching engine. In this paper, we present a parallel matching algorithm that can improve MPI matching for multithreaded applications. We then perform a feasibility study to demonstrate the performance benefit of the technique.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Flocking ferromagnetic colloids

Assemblages of microscopic colloidal particles exhibit fascinating collective motion when energized by electric or magnetic fields. The behaviors range from coherent vortical motion to phase separation and dynamic self-assembly. While colloidal systems are relatively simple, understanding their collective response, especially in out of equilibrium conditions, remains elusive. Here, we report on the emergence of flocking and global rotation in the system of rolling ferromagnetic microparticles energized by a vertical alternating magnetic field. By combing experiments and discrete particle simulations, we have identified primary physical mechanisms leading to the emergence of largescale collective motion: spontaneous symmetry breaking of the clock / counterclockwise particle rotation, collisional alignment of particle velocities, and random particle re-orientations due to shape imperfections. We have also shown that hydrodynamic interactions between the particles do not have a qualitative effect on the collective dynamics. Lastly, our findings shed light on the onset of spatial and temporal coherence in a large class of active systems, both synthetic (colloids, swarms of robots, biopolymers) and living (suspensions of bacteria, cell colonies, bird flocks).

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Traleika Glacier: A hardware-software co-designed approach to exascale computing

The move from current petascale machines to future exascale machines will need both hardware improvements and software changes. Hardware will need to evolve to focus primarily on features that lower energy consumption: near-threshold voltage operation, fine-grained power and clock management and heterogeneity. Software will also need to evolve and be able to express more parallelism, become more dynamic and adaptable in order to be able to operate on a much more variable hardware. Here, we present Traleika Glacier, an effort that seeks to evaluate radical design changes to meet the constraints, both in terms of power and cost, of exascale computing. The salient features of the hardware design presented in the work include a) a use of heterogeneous cores, b) a redesign of the memory system that centers around hierarchical scratchpads and a global address space, c) the hardware acceleration of certain memory and network operations through specialized engines and, d) very fine-grained control and monitoring capabilities. On the software side, we describe a task-based runtime system, the Open Community Runtime (OCR) which aims to express a wide range of higher-level programming models with a very limited set of core concepts: event-driven tasks for computation, events for synchronization and relocatable data-blocks for data management.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

CSP Plant Optimization Study for the California Power Market (“CalCSP”) (Final Technical Report)

Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) with thermal energy storage offers a unique and strategic opportunity to support California’s clean energy transition. Unlike photovoltaic (PV) systems, CSP with thermal storage can generate electricity after sunset and during periods of high demand, making it a valuable complement to intermittent renewable resources. CSP also provides synchronous, inertia-contributing generation, long-duration storage, and flexible dispatch—capabilities increasingly important as thermal plants retire. This report summarizes the findings of the CSP Plant Optimization Study for the California Power Market or “CalCSP study,” which evaluated the technical, economic, environmental, and policy factors that influence the deployment of CSP technologies in California. The CalCSP study was conducted to assess how CSP can contribute to California’s long-term decarbonization goals while enhancing grid reliability, supporting local economic development, and making efficient use of land and transmission resources. It draws on detailed modeling of CSP performance and costs, site suitability analysis, policy reviews, and stakeholder engagement across utilities, regulators, developers, and community organizations. The analysis focuses on mature molten-salt tower technology and incorporates lessons learned from the global CSP fleet, distinguishing today’s CSP from earlier first-of-a-kind projects in the U.S. The findings support a more prominent role for CSP in California’s evolving clean energy landscape. With strategic planning, targeted policy support, and continued cost improvements, CSP can complement PV and batteries to deliver reliable, around-the-clock clean electricity—especially in areas with high solar resource and constrained grid capacity.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Real-time Optical Network for Accelerator Control

The timing requirements of a modern accelerator complex call for several features. The first is a system for high precision relative timing among accelerator components. Stabilized fiber links have already been demonstrated to achieve sub-10 femtoseconds relative timing precision. The second is a system for timing distribution of absolute time with sufficient precision to identify a specific RF bucket. The White Rabbit technology is a promising candidate to deliver the absolute time that is linked to the GPS clock. In this study we demonstrated that these two technologies can be combined in a way that the absolute time information can be delivered to the stabilized fiber link system. This was accomplished by researching the design of the stabilized fiber and White Rabbit systems and devising adaptation modules that facilitate co-existence of both systems in the same FPGA environment. We built a prototype system using off-the-shelf products and implemented a proof-of-concept version of the FPGA firmware. The test verified that the White Rabbit features operate correctly under the stabilized fiber system environment. This work demonstrates that turn-key femtosecond timing systems with absolute time information can be built cost effectively and deployed in various accelerator environments. This will lead to many new applications in chemistry, biology and surface dynamics, to name a few.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗