Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to Hendrickson, Bruce.
We were given a charge to assess the necessity for new or upgraded facilities to ensure the Office of Science (SC) remains at the forefront of scientific discovery. This effort included evaluating five specific ASCR facilities for their potential to contribute to this goal and to rate the readiness for construction of each.
At Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, we focus on science and technology research to ensure our nation’s security. We also apply that expertise to solve other important national problems in energy, bioscience, and the environment. Science & Technology Review is published eight times a year to communicate, to a broad audience, the Laboratory’s scientific and technological accomplishments in fulfilling its primary missions. The publication’s goal is to help readers understand these accomplishments and appreciate their value to the individual citizen, the nation, and the world. The Department of Energy’s Exascale Computing Project (ECP) and Lawrence Livermore’s RADIUSS (Rapid Application Development via an Institutional Universal Software Stack) initiative benefit from strategically developed software tools. The front cover shows a simulation of advection under twisting rotation that uses high-order finite elements from Livermore’s Modular Finite Element Methods (MFEM) software library and GLVis visualization tool. On the back cover, the logo (also created with GLVis) for the MFEM project illustrates the curved mesh and sub-element resolution used in high-order simulations. MFEM and GLVis are key components of the ECP’s co-design Center for Efficient Exascale Discretizations (CEED) and RADIUSS. MFEM is also part of ECP’s Extreme-Scale Scientific Software Development Kit (xSDK).
Throughout its long history, the Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) has built the critical technologies to ensure U.S. leadership in energy science and national security. It has made its parent agency, the Department of Energy (DOE) and its Office of Science, the world’s recognized leader in computational science. ASCR’s stated mission is “to discover, develop, and deploy computational and networking capabilities to analyze, model, simulate, and predict complex phenomena important to the DOE.” To accomplish this goal, ASCR oversees a large complex of computing and networking facilities and is responsible for procuring, deploying and operating high-performance computing (HPC), networking and storage resources; conducting basic research in mathematics and computer science; developing and sustaining a large body of software; and collaborating with other Office of Science programs, academia and industry. ASCR’s computational science leadership has a long history, predating even DOE’s inception. Applied mathematics and advanced computing were both elements of the Manhattan Project’s Theoretical Division. In the 1950s, DOE’s predecessor, the Atomic Energy Commission, created a mathematics program to develop and apply digital computing by supporting researchers at universities and AEC laboratories. Several organizational and name changes later, this program would grow and become ASCR.
A report compiled by the ASCAC Subcommittee on the 40-year history of ASCR for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research. The Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) sits within the Office of Science in the Department of Energy (DOE). Per their web pages, “the mission of the ASCR program is to discover, develop, and deploy computational and networking capabilities to analyze, model, simulate, and predict complex phenomena important to the DOE.” This succinct statement encompasses a wide range of responsibilities for computing and networking facilities; for procuring, deploying, and operating high performance computing, networking, and storage resources; for basic research in mathematics and computer science; for developing and sustaining a large body of software; and for partnering with organizations across the Office of Science and beyond. While its mission statement may seem very contemporary, the roots of ASCR are quite deep—long predating the creation of DOE. Applied mathematics and advanced computing were both elements of the Theoretical Division of the Manhattan Project. In the early 1950s, the Manhattan Project scientist and mathematician John von Neumann, then a commissioner for the AEC (Atomic Energy Commission), advocated for the creation of a Mathematics program to support the continued development and applications of digital computing. Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) scientist John Pasta created such a program to fund researchers at universities and AEC laboratories. Under several organizational name changes, this program has persisted ever since, and would eventually grow to become ASCR.