SCIENCE
3 million hours of Cray supercomputer time awarded to Manchester scientists
The University of Manchester has been awarded a staggering £1.6 million worth of computing time on HECToR, the UK’s National High Performance Computing (HPC) facility. This translates into 3 million processor hours that are to be used to study materials with complex architectures. HECToR, the High End Computing Terascale Resource, currently comprises an 11,328 core Cray XT4 Scalar Supercomputer capable of up to 60 trillion floating point operations per second. 
The project was awarded to the investigators Dr Lee Margetts (Research Computing Services), Dr Paul Mummery (School of Materials Science) and Dr Mohammad Sheikh (School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering) through EPSRC’s recent HECToR Capability Challenge call. The aim of the call is to encourage UK scientists to push forward the frontiers of computational science and engineering by making use of the full capability of the HECToR system. Dr Francisco Calvo and Dr Johar Farooqi, two early career researchers, are investigating the physical properties of materials such as ceramic matrix composites and cellular solids. These high performance materials are used in the aerospace, energy and biomedical sectors. Access to HECToR will enable the project team to elicit a step change in their activities, using higher resolution models to gain a better insight into the properties of these materials. One of the most significant challenges is to ensure that ParaFEM, the parallel finite element software to be used, will make efficient use of up to 8,000 processors for each analysis undertaken. As the models to be used will comprise many billions of finite elements, this will pose two other technical hurdles: the creation of the models themselves and the analysis of the results. Dr Lee Margetts, Principal Investigator, is confident that these challenges can be faced. "Manchester is one of the few institutions worldwide that have the expertise and pedigree to make a serious contribution to scientific research through HPC. Research Computing Services still employs many technical experts who helped run the UK’s HPC service from 1998 to 2006." Whilst Manchester will ensure that the models can be analysed, Simpleware Ltd faces the challenge of building them. The approach pioneered by Simpleware is similar to medical imaging. A sample of the material under investigation is scanned, with the resulting 3D image being converted into a computer model suitable for analysis. Dr Philippe Young, Simpleware’s founder, is looking forward to the task. "Simpleware is a young and dynamic company that relishes the opportunity to work with Manchester and push forward the frontiers of image based modelling." The University of Manchester Aerospace Research Institute considers the work to be of strategic importance across many related disciplines in the University and has provided further funds for the analysis and interpretation of these massive simulations. Research Computing Services are to develop a ParaFEM interface for AVS Express, enabling more UK scientists to make use of these powerful tools.
The project was awarded to the investigators Dr Lee Margetts (Research Computing Services), Dr Paul Mummery (School of Materials Science) and Dr Mohammad Sheikh (School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering) through EPSRC’s recent HECToR Capability Challenge call. The aim of the call is to encourage UK scientists to push forward the frontiers of computational science and engineering by making use of the full capability of the HECToR system. Dr Francisco Calvo and Dr Johar Farooqi, two early career researchers, are investigating the physical properties of materials such as ceramic matrix composites and cellular solids. These high performance materials are used in the aerospace, energy and biomedical sectors. Access to HECToR will enable the project team to elicit a step change in their activities, using higher resolution models to gain a better insight into the properties of these materials. One of the most significant challenges is to ensure that ParaFEM, the parallel finite element software to be used, will make efficient use of up to 8,000 processors for each analysis undertaken. As the models to be used will comprise many billions of finite elements, this will pose two other technical hurdles: the creation of the models themselves and the analysis of the results. Dr Lee Margetts, Principal Investigator, is confident that these challenges can be faced. "Manchester is one of the few institutions worldwide that have the expertise and pedigree to make a serious contribution to scientific research through HPC. Research Computing Services still employs many technical experts who helped run the UK’s HPC service from 1998 to 2006." Whilst Manchester will ensure that the models can be analysed, Simpleware Ltd faces the challenge of building them. The approach pioneered by Simpleware is similar to medical imaging. A sample of the material under investigation is scanned, with the resulting 3D image being converted into a computer model suitable for analysis. Dr Philippe Young, Simpleware’s founder, is looking forward to the task. "Simpleware is a young and dynamic company that relishes the opportunity to work with Manchester and push forward the frontiers of image based modelling." The University of Manchester Aerospace Research Institute considers the work to be of strategic importance across many related disciplines in the University and has provided further funds for the analysis and interpretation of these massive simulations. Research Computing Services are to develop a ParaFEM interface for AVS Express, enabling more UK scientists to make use of these powerful tools.