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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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At least 1,783 records · Page 99

A massively parallel time-domain coupled electrodynamics–micromagnetics solver

We present a high-performance coupled electrodynamics–micromagnetics solver for full physical modeling of signals in microelectronic circuitry. The overall strategy couples a finite-difference time-domain approach for Maxwell’s equations to a magnetization model described by the Landau–Lifshitz–Gilbert equation. The algorithm is implemented in the Exascale Computing Project software framework, AMReX, which provides effective scalability on manycore and GPU-based supercomputing architectures. Furthermore, the code leverages ongoing developments of the Exascale Application Code, WarpX, which is primarily being developed for plasma wakefield accelerator modeling. Our temporal coupling scheme provides second-order accuracy in space and time by combining the integration steps for the magnetic field and magnetization into an iterative sub-step that includes a trapezoidal temporal discretization for the magnetization. The performance of the algorithm is demonstrated by the excellent scaling results on NERSC multicore and GPU systems, with a significant (59×) speedup on the GPU using a node-by-node comparison. We demonstrate the utility of our code by performing simulations of an electromagnetic waveguide and a magnetically tunable filter.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Oineus v1.0

A library for multi-threaded computation of persistence diagrams. The algorithm for computing persistence diagrams in a lock-free manner was published in the 'Towards Lock-free Persistent Homology' (D. Morozov, A. Nigmetov, Brief Announcement: SPAA 2020); it scales better than the only other shared-memory parallel implementation of persistent homology computation PHAT. Library includes python bindings to compute persistence diagrams and their vectorizations for lower-star filtrations on grid data. It is intended to be used by scientists working on Topological Data Analysis and its applications in different areas.

Nigmetov, Arnur↗

Neural network based decomposition in optimal structural synthesis

The present paper describes potential applications of neural networks in the multilevel decomposition based optimal design of structural systems. The generic structural optimization problem of interest, if handled as a single problem, results in a large dimensionality problem. Decomposition strategies allow for this problem to be represented by a set of smaller, decoupled problems, for which solutions may either be obtained with greater ease or may be obtained in parallel. Neural network models derived through supervised training, are used in two distinct modes in this work. The first uses neural networks to make available efficient analysis models for use in repetitive function evaluations as required by the optimization algorithm. In the second mode, neural networks are used to represent the coupling that exists between the decomposed subproblems. The approach is illustrated by application to the multilevel decomposition-based synthesis of representative truss and frame structures.

Hajela, P.↗

CFD analysis of hypersonic, chemically reacting flow fields

Design studies are underway for a variety of hypersonic flight vehicles. The National Aero-Space Plane will provide a reusable, single-stage-to-orbit capability for routine access to low earth orbit. Flight-capable satellites will dip into the atmosphere to maneuver to new orbits, while planetary probes will decelerate at their destination by atmospheric aerobraking. To supplement limited experimental capabilities in the hypersonic regime, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is being used to analyze the flow about these configurations. The governing equations include fluid dynamic as well as chemical species equations, which are being solved with new, robust numerical algorithms. Examples of CFD applications to hypersonic vehicles suggest an important role this technology will play in the development of future aerospace systems. The computational resources needed to obtain solutions are large, but solution adaptive grids, convergence acceleration, and parallel processing may make run times manageable.

Edwards, T. A.↗

On the Computational Capabilities of Physical Systems: The Impossibility of Infallible Computation - Part 1

In this first of two papers, strong limits on the accuracy of physical computation are established. First it is proven that there cannot be a physical computer C to which one can pose any and all computational tasks concerning the physical universe. Next it is proven that no physical computer C can correctly carry out any computational task in the subset of such tasks that can be posed to C. This result holds whether the computational tasks concern a system that is physically isolated from C, or instead concern a system that is coupled to C. As a particular example, this result means that there cannot be a physical computer that can, for any physical system external to that computer, take the specification of that external system's state as input and then correctly predict its future state before that future state actually occurs; one cannot build a physical computer that can be assured of correctly 'processing information faster than the universe does'. The results also mean that there cannot exist an infallible, general-purpose observation apparatus, and that there cannot be an infallible, general-purpose control apparatus. These results do not rely on systems that are infinite, and/or non-classical, and/or obey chaotic dynamics. They also hold even if one uses an infinitely fast, infinitely dense computer, with computational powers greater than that of a Turing Machine. This generality is a direct consequence of the fact that a novel definition of computation - a definition of 'physical computation' - is needed to address the issues considered in these papers. While this definition does not fit into the traditional Chomsky hierarchy, the mathematical structure and impossibility results associated with it have parallels in the mathematics of the Chomsky hierarchy. The second in this pair of papers presents a preliminary exploration of some of this mathematical structure, including in particular that of prediction complexity, which is a 'physical computation analogue' of algorithmic information complexity. It is proven in that second paper that either the Hamiltonian of our universe proscribes a certain type of computation, or prediction complexity is unique (unlike algorithmic information complexity), in that there is one and only version of it that can be applicable throughout our universe.

Wolpert, David H.↗

Algorithm 1028: VTMOP: Solver for Blackbox Multiobjective Optimization Problems

VTMOP is a Fortran 2008 software package containing two Fortran modules for solving computationally expensive bound-constrained blackbox multiobjective optimization problems. VTMOP implements the algorithm of [32], which handles two or more objectives, does not require any derivatives, and produces well-distributed points over the Pareto front. The first module contains a general framework for solving multiobjective optimization problems by combining response surface methodology, trust region methodology, and an adaptive weighting scheme. The second module features a driver subroutine that implements this framework when the objective functions can be wrapped as a Fortran subroutine. Lastly, support is provided for both serial and parallel execution paradigms, and VTMOP is demonstrated on several test problems as well as one real-world problem in the area of particle accelerator optimization.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Towards Superior Software Portability with SHAD and HPX C++ Libraries

As hardware architectures and software stacks complexity grows, development productivity, performance and software portability, quickly evolve from desirable features to actual needs. SHAD, the Scalable High-performance Algorithms and Data-structures C++ library is designed to mitigate these issues: it provides general purpose building blocks as well as high-level custom utilities, and offers a shared-memory programming abstraction which facilitates the programming of complex systems, scaling up to High Performance Computing clusters. SHAD’s portability is achieved through an abstract runtime interface, which decouples the upper layers of the library and hides the low level details of the underlying architecture. This layer enables SHAD to interface with different runtime/threading systems, e.g. Intel TBB and Global Memory and Threading (GMT). However, current backends targeting distributed systems, rely on a centralized controller which may possibly limit scalability up to hundreds of nodes and creates a network hot spot due to all to one communication for synchronization, and possibly resulting in degraded performance at high process counts. In this research, we explore HPX, the C++ standard library for parallelism and concurrency, as an additional backend in support of the SHAD library, and present the methodologies in support of local and remote task executions in SHAD with respect to HPX. Finally, we evaluate the proposed system by comparing against existing backends of SHAD and analyzing their performance on C++ Standard Template Library algorithms.

Wu, Nanmiao↗

SNoGloDe: A Structured Nonlinear Global Decomposition Solver

Large-scale optimization problems often require decomposition strategies and customized algorithms to achieve optimal solutions within a reasonable time. Building on the work of Cao and Zavala (2019) for solving nonlinear two-stage stochastic programs to global optimality, we implement and extend their approach. We generalize to optimization problems reformulated with a block-angular constraint structure (e.g., temporal decomposition). Our framework, written in Python using Pyomo, is highly customizable and enables parallel execution of the decomposition. SNoGloDe allows tailored branching strategies, lower bounding problems, and candidate generators to leverage problem-specific knowledge. To demonstrate effectiveness, we compare SNoGloDe’s performance with Gurobi on a temporally decomposed produced water case study.

algorithms↗

Particle simulation in a multiprocessor environment

A parallel implementation of a particle simulation method that is portable between a wide class of multiprocessor computers is presented. A fine grain spatial decomposition is utilized where several subdomains having a regular structure are computed at each processing node. This leads directly to an efficient and straightforward load balancing scheme if the number of subdomains at each processor is permitted to vary in an appropriate manner. Three dimensional simulations incorporating full thermochemical nonequilibrium are possible using the resulting code. Vectorizable algorithms are retained from earlier work allowing efficient use of deeply pipelined node processors where available. Performance results are presented from three different machine architectures demonstrating the portability of the code. On a 128-node Intel iPSC/860, performance is twice that of a single Cray-Y/MP CPU running a highly vectorized simulation code. Speedup is linear over the full range of number of processors on all target machines, indicating scalability of the method to higher degrees of parallelism.

Mcdonald, Jeffrey D.↗

Addressing Load Imbalance in Bioinformatics and Biomedical Applications: Efficient Scheduling across Multiple GPUs

Computational bioinformatics and biomedical applications frequently contain heterogeneously sized units of work or tasks, for instance due to variability in the sizes of biological sequences and molecules. Variable-sized workloads lead to load imbalances in parallel implementations which detract from efficiency and performance. Many modern computing resources now have multiple graphics processing units(GPUs) per computer for acceleration. These multiple GPU resources need to be used efficiently through balancing of workloads across the GPUs. OpenMP is a portable directive-based parallel programming API used ubiquitously in bioscience applications to program CPUs; recently, the use of OpenMP directives for GPU acceleration has become possible. Here, motivated by experiences with imbalanced loads in GPU-accelerated bioinformatics applications, we address the load balancing problem using OpenMP task-to-GPU scheduling combined with OpenMP GPU offloading for multiply heterogeneous workloads – loads with both variable input sizes, and simultaneously, variable convergence rates for algorithms with a stochastic component – scheduled across multiple GPUs. We aim to develop strategies which are both easy to use and have lower overheads, and may be incorporated incrementally in existing programs which already make use of OpenMP for CPU-based threading in order to make use of multi-GPU computers. We test different combinations of input size variability and convergence rate variability, and characterize the effects of these different scenarios on the performance of scheduling strategies across multiple GPUs with OpenMP. We present several dynamic scheduling solutions for different parallel patterns, explore optimizations, and provide publicly available example computational kernels to make these strategies easy to use in programs. This work will enable application developers to efficiently and easily use multiple GPUs for imbalanced workloads found in bioinformatics and biomedical applications.

Thavappiragasam, Mathialakan↗

Systematic generation of multibody equations of motion suitable for recursive and parallel manipulation

The formulation of a method known as the joint coordinate method for automatic generation of the equations of motion for multibody systems is summarized. For systems containing open or closed kinematic loops, the equations of motion can be reduced systematically to a minimum number of second order differential equations. The application of recursive and nonrecursive algorithms to this formulation, computational considerations and the feasibility of implementing this formulation on multiprocessor computers are discussed.

Nikravesh, Parviz E.↗

Did the GPU obfuscate the load imbalance in my MPI simulation?

The current proliferation of GPU-based HPC systems necessitates a method for assessing the performance of simulations on heterogeneous machines. The addition of GPUs to a system adds multiple hierarchical levels of parallelism to the node architecture. In this paper, we demonstrate that the traditional load imbalance metric is insufficient for capturing the load imbalance on GPU-based machines, since it treats the GPU as a monolithic entity and ignores the internal parallelism. We propose a new hierarchical metric that improves the correlation of measured performance and application workload by up to 20.61%. Using our metric for determining application load instead of the traditional metric as the input for the load balancing algorithm reduces the residual load imbalance by up to 4× in our application.

Eberius, David↗

Global Pathway Selection with Zero-RK

Global Pathway Selection (GPS) is an algorithm to effectively generates reduced (skeletal) chemistry mechanisms, which speeds up simulations and can be used as a systematic analytics tool to extract insights from complex reacting system. This release is an extension of the original code to run in parallel and to use LLNL's Zero-RK solver for fast solution of chemical problems.

Whitesides, RussellA↗

Global Pathway Selection with Zero-RK v0.5

Global Pathway Selection (GPS) is an algorithm to effectively generates reduced (skeletal) chemistry mechanisms, which speeds up simulations and can be used as a systematic analytics tool to extract insights from complex reacting system. This release is an extension of the original code to run in parallel and to use LLNL's Zero-RK solver for fast solution of chemical problems.

Whitesides, RussellA [Lawrence Livermore National ↗

CSRI Summer Proceedings 2021

The Computer Science Research Institute (CSRI) brings university faculty and students to Sandia National Laboratories for focused collaborative research on Department of Energy (DOE) computer and computational science problems. The institute provides an opportunity for university researches to learn about problems in computer and computational science at DOE laboratories, and help transfer results of their research to programs at the labs. Some specific CSRI research interest areas are: scalable solvers, optimization, algebraic preconditioners, graph-based, discrete, and combinatorial algorithms, uncertainty estimation, validation and verification methods, mesh generation, dynamic load-balancing, virus and other malicious-code defense, visualization, scalable cluster computers, beyond Moore’s Law computing, exascale computing tools and application design, reduced order and multiscale modeling, parallel input/output, and theoretical computer science. The CSRI Summer Program is organized by CSRI and includes a weekly seminar series and the publication of a summer proceedings.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

CSRI Summer Proceedings 2021

The Computer Science Research Institute (CSRI) brings university faculty and students to Sandia National Laboratories for focused collaborative research on Department of Energy (DOE) computer and computational science problems. The institute provides an opportunity for university researches to learn about problems in computer and computational science at DOE laboratories, and help transfer results of their research to programs at the labs. Some specific CSRI research interest areas are: scalable solvers, optimization, algebraic preconditioners, graph-based, discrete, and combinatorial algorithms, uncertainty estimation, validation and verification methods, mesh generation, dynamic load-balancing, virus and other malicious-code defense, visualization, scalable cluster computers, beyond Moore’s Law computing, exascale computing tools and application design, reduced order and multiscale modeling, parallel input/output, and theoretical computer science. The CSRI Summer Program is organized by CSRI and includes a weekly seminar series and the publication of a summer proceedings.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Structural synthesis: Precursor and catalyst

More than twenty five years have elapsed since it was recognized that a rather general class of structural design optimization tasks could be properly posed as an inequality constrained minimization problem. It is suggested that, independent of primary discipline area, it will be useful to think about: (1) posing design problems in terms of an objective function and inequality constraints; (2) generating design oriented approximate analysis methods (giving special attention to behavior sensitivity analysis); (3) distinguishing between decisions that lead to an analysis model and those that lead to a design model; (4) finding ways to generate a sequence of approximate design optimization problems that capture the essential characteristics of the primary problem, while still having an explicit algebraic form that is matched to one or more of the established optimization algorithms; (5) examining the potential of optimum design sensitivity analysis to facilitate quantitative trade-off studies as well as participation in multilevel design activities. It should be kept in mind that multilevel methods are inherently well suited to a parallel mode of operation in computer terms or to a division of labor between task groups in organizational terms. Based on structural experience with multilevel methods general guidelines are suggested.

Schmit, L. A.↗

Route planning in a four-dimensional environment

Robots must be able to function in the real world. The real world involves processes and agents that move independently of the actions of the robot, sometimes in an unpredictable manner. A real-time integrated route planning and spatial representation system for planning routes through dynamic domains is presented. The system will find the safest most efficient route through space-time as described by a set of user defined evaluation functions. Because the route planning algorthims is highly parallel and can run on an SIMD machine in O(p) time (p is the length of a path), the system will find real-time paths through unpredictable domains when used in an incremental mode. Spatial representation, an SIMD algorithm for route planning in a dynamic domain, and results from an implementation on a traditional computer architecture are discussed.

Slack, M. G.↗