Computer Applications in Science & Engineering Department |
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Report of Research Activities 2008Aim And Structure of the DepartmentThe CASE Department mission is to develop computational tools capable of running with the highest performance standards in large supercomputers. The objective is to simulate those complex physical systems present in Science and Technology that require large computational power. The objectives of the CASE department can therefore only be met when strong collaboration links with scientific and industrial partners are formed: CASE’s scientific staff provides its background in computational methods while the partners bring the target problems and the expertise in their own application fields. By “computational methods” are understood Physical models, Mathematical and Numerical tools, Programming Strategies and Parallelization and Applications Performance Analysis. The scientific field of the Department is High Performance Computational Mechanics (HPCM). According to Oden et al. (2003), Computational Mechanics (CM) is a discipline on its own, being a sub-branch of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (TAM). TAM is the part of Theoretical Physics that studies the systems governed by forces and conservation principles. CM is that sub-discipline of TAM concerned with the use of computational methods and devices to study events governed by the principles of mechanics. HPCM is CM, but with a strong component in adapting mathematical models, numerical and solution schemes and programming techniques to high end parallel computers. The final objective of HPCM is to develop Computer Simulations of Physical Processes in HPC architectures. The Department acted during 2008 primarily through projects, which can be grouped as follows: Science driven projects: Involve partnerships with university research groups, financed by governmental (Spanish and CE) programmes. They lie in the following areas: astrophysics, quantum mechanics, material sciences, fluid mechanics, etc. These projects typically have high social impact and are the “support” that BSC provides to Spanish research groups of excellence. Industry driven projects Involve industrial partnerships for applied research. Additionally to governmental funding, they can be directly financed by industries. They tend to lie in the following sectors: aerospace, energy, naval, etc. These projects reflect the commitment of the BSC-CNS to improving the Spanish industrial sectors. Basic research projects These projects are absolutely necessary to enforce the other two. They are generated internally or by collaboration with other BSC-CNS groups, following lines such as Mesh Generation, Optimization, Algebraic Solvers, Stabilization, etc. The CASE Department has two research groups: High Performance Computational Mechanics and Physical and Numerical Modelling. Both groups have combined activities, covering a wide range from basic consulting up to writing parallel Computational Mechanics codes. The Department is the developer of the BSiT code for the REPSOL oil company (Reverse Time Migration) and co-developer of SIESTA (ab-initio simulations) and EUTERPE and BIT1 (Plasma Physics, co-developed by Max Planck Institute and CIEMAT). The main tool for general HPCM simulations is the in-house code Alya System, which is widely used in CASE projects. During 2008, the CASE Department took part in the following projects:
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