AHPCRC Bulletin: Summer 1995 - Volume 5 Number 4
1995 Summer Undergraduate Internship in High Performance Computing in Fluid Dynamics
Anita Anderson (AHPCRC-UM)
The AHPCRC and the University of Minnesota Supercomputer Institute (MSI)
jointly sponsored the 1995 Summer Undergraduate Internship Program in High
Performance Computing in Fluid Dynamics. The primary objective of this
internship program, funded by the National Science Foundation (PI: T.
Tezduyar), is to promote undergraduate involvement in high performance
computing (HPC) in fluid dynamics, including parallel computing and advanced
graphics and visualization techniques. The projects were supervised by
University of Minnesota (UM) faculty in aerospace engineering and mechanics,
astronomy, chemical engineering and materials science, and computer science,
and Clark Atlanta University (CAU) faculty in Engineering. It is also the
objective of this program to encourage the participants to pursue graduate
studies in HPC and its applications in engineering and sciences. Intern
selections were made through a nationwide competition. Of the eleven students
who attended the ten-week internship program, nine were supervised by AHPCRC
faculty. The following students participated in the 1995 program.
Daniel Clark is pursuing a degree from Dartmouth College in physics with a
minor in engineering sciences and a specialization in fluid dynamics. His
faculty supervisor for the internship program was Tayfun Tezduyar, the AHPCRC
Director, and professor of Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics (AEM) at the
UM. Clark and Tezduyar's project, "Numerical Simulation of the Dispersion of
Air Contamination in a Subway Station", used a Cray T3D supercomputer to
conduct a numerical simulation of the spread of a gaseous substance inside a
subway station. The mesh generators and flow solvers used in this project was
developed by the AEM Finite Element Group at the AHPCRC-UM.
Michael Dennis is pursuing a degree from Northwestern University in chemical
engineering with an economics theme. His supervisors for the internship
program were Jeffrey Derby and Andrew Yeckel. Derby is an AHPCRC-UM
co-principal investigator, and professor in the Department of Chemical
Engineering and Materials Science (CEMS) at the UM. Yeckel is a postdoctorial
associate in the same department. The objective of the project, "Convective
Mixing During Growth of Single Crystal KDP from Solution: Animating Particle
Paths", was to visualize computer simulations of the 3D time-dependent flow in
a system to grow single-crystal KDP (potassium dihydrogen phosphate) from
solution.
Andrew Engel is pursuing a degree from Hamline University in physics and
mathematics. His faculty supervisor for the internship program was Thomas
Jones, Chairman and professor, UM Department of Astronomy. Engel and Jones'
project, "Simulation of Diffusive Transport of Energetic Particles in
Compressible Cosmic Fluids", involved the study of numerical simulation of a
high-speed, light jet for the purpose of helping to model the formation of
highly energetic particles in radio galaxies.
Steven Ford is pursuing a degree from the UM in aerospace engineering and
mechanics. His faculty supervisor for the internship program was Tezduyar.
Ford and Tezduyar's project, "Real-Time Particle Tracing Software for Finite
Element Simulations of Fluid Flow Applications," involved the development of a
FORTRAN code to simulate particle tracing in flow computations.
Joseph Gaalaas is pursuing a degree from the UM in physics. His faculty
advisor for the internship program was Thomas Jones. Gaalaas and Jones'
project, "The MHD Delvin-Helmholtz Instability: A Two-Dimensional Numerical
Study", used a newly developed second order accurate multi-dimensional MHD code
to carry out 2D simulations of the nonlinear evolution of unstable sheared
magnetohydrodynamic flows.
Brent Harrold is pursuing a degree from Gustavus Adolphus College in physics.
His faculty supervisor was Graham Candler, an AHPCRC-UM co-principal
investigator and faculty member in AEM. The goal of Harrold and Candler's
project, "Detailed Modeling of Nitrogen Vibration and Dissociation in
Hypersonic Flows" was to model the hypersonic flow over a sphere using both the
full method (solving 56 simultaneous partial differential equations) and the
"simple" method, and then compare the results to determine if the assumption of
a Boltzmann distribution of nitrogen molecules is an accurate one.
Figure 1. Gary Jones presenting project results.
Gary Jones is pursuing a degree from CAU in civil engineering and mathematics.
He also attended the AHPCRC 1994 Summer Institute on HPC for Undergraduate
Students. Jones' faculty supervisor for the internship program was Olugbemiga
Olatidoye, the AHPCRC-CAU principal investigator and professor in the CAU
Department of Engineering. Jones and Olatidoye's project, "Three-Dimensional
Graphics Fluid-Structure Interaction Problems" was designed by Olatidoye to
analyze and simulate the behavior of structures, such as truss-beams in
building design, from a structural engineering point of view. Present
methodology was used on the flow problem, and extended to the structural member
being investigated to see the flow impact on it. This procedure can be
extended to structures such as buildings that are prone to be impacted by
hurricanes and to large space structures. The mesh generators and flow solvers
used in this project were developed by the AEM Finite Element Group at the
AHPCRC-UM.
Figure 2. Tahirih Lackey presenting project results.
Tahirih Lackey is pursuing a degree from Jackson State University in physics
and chemistry. Her faculty supervisor for the internship program was Candler.
Lackey and Candler's project, "The Interaction of a Planar Shock Wave with a
Drop", studied the effects of planar shock waves passing over liquid drops to
better understand how droplets shatter. Knowledge of this process is currently
very limited and numerical studies will provide new insight into the different
stages of droplet breakup.
Matthew Litke is pursuing a degree from the UM in aerospace engineering and
mechanics. His faculty sponsor for the internship program was Tezduyar. Litke
and Tezduyar's project, "Contaminant Dispersion around an M1 Battle Tank",
numerically simulates contaminant dispersion around an M1 Battle Tank and is
computed on the Cray T3D parallel supercomputer using mesh generators and flow
solvers developed by the AEM Finite Element Group at the AHPCRC.
Patrick Notz is pursuing a degree from the UM in chemical engineering with a
numerical methods emphasis. His faculty supervisor for the internship program
was L. E. Scriven, a professor in CEMS. The purpose of Notz and Scriven's
project, "Plotting Flow Portraits by Supercomputer", was to take theoretical,
fluid flow models, both exact and numerical, and draw detailed flow portraits
of prototype flows using the computer graphics facilities available at the
MSI.
Dawn Werner is pursuing a degree in computer science with a mathematics minor
from the UM. Her faculty supervisor was Ahmed Sameh, an AHPCRC-UM co-principal
investigator, and head of the UM Department of Computer Science. Werner and
Sameh studied two problems, "Parallel Algorithms for the Generalized Stokes
Problem" and "Parallel Algorithms for Electromagnetic Scattering Problems", for
the purpose of developing fast parallel algorithms for their solutions.
