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At least 829 records · Page 46

Urban Environment Initiative

The Urban Environment Initiative (UEI), has been established as part of a Cooperative Agreement with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The UEI is part of NASA's overall High Performance Computing and Communications (HPCC) and the Information Infrastructure Technology Applications (IITA) programs. The goal of the UEI is to provide public access to Earth Science information and promote its use with a focus on the environment of urban areas. This goal will be accomplished through collaborative efforts of the UEI team with both community-based and local/regional governmental organizations. The UEI team is comprised of four organizations representing private industry, NASA, and universities: Prime Technologies Service Corporation, NASA's Minority University Space Interdisciplinary Network (MU-SPIN) California State University, at Los Angeles, and Central State University (Wilberforce, OH). "Urban Environment" refers to the web of environmental, economic, and social factors that combine to create the urban world in which we live. Examples of these factors are population distribution, neighborhood demographic profiles, economic resources, business activities, location and concentration of environmental hazards and various pollutants, proximity and level of urban services, which form the basis of the urban environment and ultimately affect our lives and experiences. The use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and remote sensing allows data to be visualized in the forms of maps and spatial images. The use of these tools allow analysis of information about urban environments. Also included are descriptions of the four query types which will assist in understanding the maps.

Source record↗

Towards Flange-to-Flange Turbopump Simulations for Liquid Rocket Engines

The primary objective of this research is to support the design of liquid rocket systems for the Advanced Space Transportation System. Since the space launch systems in the near future are likely to rely on liquid rocket engines, increasing the efficiency and reliability of the engine components is an important task. One of the major problems in the liquid rocket engine is to understand fluid dynamics of fuel and oxidizer flows from the fuel tank to plume. Understanding the flow through the entire turbopump geometry through numerical simulation will be of significant value toward design. This will help to improve safety of future space missions. One of the milestones of this effort is to develop, apply and demonstrate the capability and accuracy of 3D CFD methods as efficient design analysis tools on high performance computer platforms. The development of the MPI and MLP versions of the INS3D code is currently underway. The serial version of INS3D code is a multidimensional incompressible Navier-Stokes solver based on overset grid technology. INS3D-MPI is based on the explicit massage-passing interface across processors and is primarily suited for distributed memory systems. INS3D-MLP is based on multi-level parallel method and is suitable for distributed-shared memory systems. For the entire turbopump simulations, moving boundary capability and an efficient time-accurate integration methods are build in the flow solver. To handle the geometric complexity and moving boundary problems, overset grid scheme is incorporated with the solver that new connectivity data will be obtained at each time step. The Chimera overlapped grid scheme allows subdomains move relative to each other, and provides a great flexibility when the boundary movement creates large displacements. The performance of the two time integration schemes for time-accurate computations is investigated. For an unsteady flow which requires small physical time step, the pressure projection method was found to be computationally efficient since it does not require any subiterations procedure. It was observed that the artificial compressibility method requires a fast convergence scheme at each physical time step in order to satisfy incompressibility condition. This was obtained by using a GMRES-ILU(0) solver in our computations. When a line-relaxation scheme was used, the time accuracy was degraded and time-accurate computations became very expensive. The current geometry for the LOX boost turbopump has various rotating and stationary components, such as inducer, stators, kicker, hydrolic turbine, where the flow is extremely unsteady. Figure 1 shows the geometry and computed surface pressure of the inducer. The inducer and the hydrolic turbine rotate in different rotational speed.

Kiris, Cetin↗

Implementation of BT, SP, LU, and FT of NAS Parallel Benchmarks in Java

A number of Java features make it an attractive but a debatable choice for High Performance Computing. We have implemented benchmarks working on single structured grid BT,SP,LU and FT in Java. The performance and scalability of the Java code shows that a significant improvement in Java compiler technology and in Java thread implementation are necessary for Java to compete with Fortran in HPC applications.

Schultz, Matthew↗

Implementation of NAS Parallel Benchmarks in Java

A number of features make Java an attractive but a debatable choice for High Performance Computing (HPC). In order to gauge the applicability of Java to the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) we have implemented NAS Parallel Benchmarks in Java. The performance and scalability of the benchmarks point out the areas where improvement in Java compiler technology and in Java thread implementation would move Java closer to Fortran in the competition for CFD applications.

Frumkin, Michael↗

Supercomputing Aspects for Simulating Incompressible Flow

The primary objective of this research is to support the design of liquid rocket systems for the Advanced Space Transportation System. Since the space launch systems in the near future are likely to rely on liquid rocket engines, increasing the efficiency and reliability of the engine components is an important task. One of the major problems in the liquid rocket engine is to understand fluid dynamics of fuel and oxidizer flows from the fuel tank to plume. Understanding the flow through the entire turbo-pump geometry through numerical simulation will be of significant value toward design. One of the milestones of this effort is to develop, apply and demonstrate the capability and accuracy of 3D CFD methods as efficient design analysis tools on high performance computer platforms. The development of the Message Passage Interface (MPI) and Multi Level Parallel (MLP) versions of the INS3D code is currently underway. The serial version of INS3D code is a multidimensional incompressible Navier-Stokes solver based on overset grid technology, INS3D-MPI is based on the explicit massage-passing interface across processors and is primarily suited for distributed memory systems. INS3D-MLP is based on multi-level parallel method and is suitable for distributed-shared memory systems. For the entire turbo-pump simulations, moving boundary capability and efficient time-accurate integration methods are built in the flow solver, To handle the geometric complexity and moving boundary problems, an overset grid scheme is incorporated with the solver so that new connectivity data will be obtained at each time step. The Chimera overlapped grid scheme allows subdomains move relative to each other, and provides a great flexibility when the boundary movement creates large displacements. Two numerical procedures, one based on artificial compressibility method and the other pressure projection method, are outlined for obtaining time-accurate solutions of the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations. The performance of the two methods is compared by obtaining unsteady solutions for the evolution of twin vortices behind a flat plate. Calculated results are compared with experimental and other numerical results. For an unsteady flow, which requires small physical time step, the pressure projection method was found to be computationally efficient since it does not require any subiteration procedure. It was observed that the artificial compressibility method requires a fast convergence scheme at each physical time step in order to satisfy the incompressibility condition. This was obtained by using a GMRES-ILU(0) solver in present computations. When a line-relaxation scheme was used, the time accuracy was degraded and time-accurate computations became very expensive.

Kwak, Dochan↗

Space Transportation Propulsion Systems

This report outlines the Space Transportation Propulsion Systems for the NPSS (Numerical Propulsion System Simulation) program. Topics include: 1) a review of Engine/Inlet Coupling Work; 2) Background/Organization of Space Transportation Initiative; 3) Synergy between High Performance Computing and Communications Program (HPCCP) and Advanced Space Transportation Program (ASTP); 4) Status of Space Transportation Effort, including planned deliverables for FY01-FY06, FY00 accomplishments (HPCCP Funded) and FY01 Major Milestones (HPCCP and ASTP); and 5) a review current technical efforts, including a review of the Rocket-Based Combined-Cycle (RBCC), Scope of Work, RBCC Concept Aerodynamic Analysis and RBCC Concept Multidisciplinary Analysis.

Liou, Meng-Sing↗

A Log Logistic Survival Model Applied to Hypobaric Decompression Sickness

Decompression sickness (DCS) is a complex, multivariable problem. A mathematical description or model of the likelihood of DCS requires a large amount of quality research data, ideas on how to define a decompression dose using physical and physiological variables, and an appropriate analytical approach. It also requires a high-performance computer with specialized software. I have used published DCS data to develop my decompression doses, which are variants of equilibrium expressions for evolved gas plus other explanatory variables. My analytical approach is survival analysis, where the time of DCS occurrence is modeled. My conclusions can be applied to simple hypobaric decompressions - ascents lasting from 5 to 30 minutes - and, after minutes to hours, to denitrogenation (prebreathing). They are also applicable to long or short exposures, and can be used whether the sufferer of DCS is at rest or exercising at altitude. Ultimately I would like my models to be applied to astronauts to reduce the risk of DCS during spacewalks, as well as to future spaceflight crews on the Moon and Mars.

Conkin, Johnny↗

Managing Complexity in Multidisciplinary Visualization

As high performance computing technology progresses, computational simulations are becoming more advanced in their capabilities. In the computational aerosciences domain, single discipline steady-state simulations computed on a single grid are far from the state-of-the-art. In their place are complex, time-dependent multidisciplinary simulations that attempt to model a given geometry more realistically. The product of these multidisciplinary simulations is a massive amount of data stored in different formats, grid topologies, units of measure, etc., as a result of the differences in the simulated physical domains. In addition to the challenges posed by setting up and performing the simulation, additional challenges exist in analyzing computational results. Visualization plays an important role in the advancement of multidisciplinary simulations. To date, visualization has been used to aid in the interpretation of large amounts of simulation data. Because the human visual system is effective in digesting a large amount of information presented graphically, visualization has helped simulation scientists to understand complex simulation results. As these simulations become even more complex, integrating several different physical domains, visualization will be critical to digest the massive amount of information. Another important role for visualization is to provide a common communication medium from which the domain scientists can use to develop, debug, and analyze their work. Multidisciplinary analyses are the next step in simulation technology, not only in computational aerosciences, but in many other areas such as global climate modeling. Visualization researchers must understand and work towards the challenges posed by multidisciplinary simulation scenarios. This paper addresses some of these challenges, describing technologies that must be investigated to create a useful visualization analysis tool for domain scientists.

Miceli, Kristina D.↗

"Recognizing Numerical Constants"

The advent of inexpensive, high performance computer and new efficient algorithms have made possible the automatic recognition of numerically computed constants. In other words, techniques now exist for determining, within certain limits, whether a computed real or complex number can be written as a simple expression involving the classical constants of mathematics. In this presentation, some of the recently discovered techniques for constant recognition, notably integer relation detection algorithms, will be presented. As an application of these methods, the author's recent work in recognizing "Euler sums" will be described in some detail.

Bailey, David H.↗

Task Assignment Heuristics for Distributed CFD Applications

CFD applications require high-performance computational platforms: 1. Complex physics and domain configuration demand strongly coupled solutions; 2. Applications are CPU and memory intensive; and 3. Huge resource requirements can only be satisfied by teraflop-scale machines or distributed computing.

Lopez-Benitez, N.↗

Incompressible Navier-Stokes Solvers in Primative Variables and their Applications to Steady and Unsteady Flow Simulations

This paper reviews recent progress made in incompressible Navier-Stokes simulation procedures and their application to problems of engineering interest. Discussions are focused on the methods designed for complex geometry applications in three dimensions, and thus are limited to primitive variable formulation. A summary of efforts in flow solver development is given followed by numerical studies of a few example problems of current interest. Both steady and unsteady solution algorithms and their salient features are discussed. Solvers discussed here are based on a structured-grid approach using either a finite -difference or a finite-volume frame work. As a grand-challenge application of these solvers, an unsteady turbopump flow simulation procedure has been developed which utilizes high performance computing platforms. In the paper, the progress toward the complete simulation capability of the turbo-pump for a liquid rocket engine is reported. The Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) turbo-pump is used as a test case for evaluation of two parallel computing algorithms that have been implemented in the INS3D code. The relative motion of the grid systems for the rotorstator interaction was obtained using overact grid techniques. Unsteady computations for the SSME turbo-pump, which contains 114 zones with 34.5 million grid points, are carried out on SCSI Origin 3000 systems at NASA Ames Research Center. The same procedure has been extended to the development of NASA-DeBakey Ventricular Assist Device (VAD) that is based on an axial blood pump. Computational, and clinical analysis of this device are presented.

Kiris, Cetin C.↗

Implementation of the NAS Parallel Benchmarks in Java

Several features make Java an attractive choice for High Performance Computing (HPC). In order to gauge the applicability of Java to Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), we have implemented the NAS (NASA Advanced Supercomputing) Parallel Benchmarks in Java. The performance and scalability of the benchmarks point out the areas where improvement in Java compiler technology and in Java thread implementation would position Java closer to Fortran in the competition for CFD applications.

Frumkin, Michael A.↗

NAS Parallel Benchmarks I/O Version 2.4

We describe a benchmark problem, based on the Block-Tridiagonal (BT) problem of the NAS Parallel Benchmarks (NPB), which is used to test the output capabilities of high-performance computing systems, especially parallel systems. We also present a source code implementation of the benchmark, called NPBIO2.4-MPI, based on the MPI implementation of NPB, using a variety of ways to write the computed solutions to file.

Wong, Parkson↗

Aviation Safety Modeling and Simulation (ASMM) Propulsion Fleet Modeling: A Tool for Semi-Automatic Construction of CORBA-based Applications from Legacy Fortran Programs

Within NASA's Aviation Safety Program, NASA GRC participates in the Modeling and Simulation Project called ASMM. NASA GRC s focus is to characterize the propulsion systems performance from a fleet management and maintenance perspective by modeling and through simulation predict the characteristics of two classes of commercial engines (CFM56 and GE90). In prior years, the High Performance Computing and Communication (HPCC) program funded, NASA Glenn in developing a large scale, detailed simulations for the analysis and design of aircraft engines called the Numerical Propulsion System Simulation (NPSS). Three major aspects of this modeling included the integration of different engine components, coupling of multiple disciplines, and engine component zooming at appropriate level fidelity, require relatively tight coupling of different analysis codes. Most of these codes in aerodynamics and solid mechanics are written in Fortran. Refitting these legacy Fortran codes with distributed objects can increase these codes reusability. Aviation Safety s modeling and simulation use in characterizing fleet management has similar needs. The modeling and simulation of these propulsion systems use existing Fortran and C codes that are instrumental in determining the performance of the fleet. The research centers on building a CORBA-based development environment for programmers to easily wrap and couple legacy Fortran codes. This environment consists of a C++ wrapper library to hide the details of CORBA and an efficient remote variable scheme to facilitate data exchange between the client and the server model. Additionally, a Web Service model should also be constructed for evaluation of this technology s use over the next two- three years.

Sang, Janche↗

Securing the User's Work Environment

High performance computing at the Numerical Aerospace Simulation Facility at NASA Ames Research Center includes C90's, J90's and Origin 2000's. Not only is it necessary to protect these systems from outside attacks, but also to provide a safe working environment on the systems. With the right tools, security anomalies in the user s work environment can be deleted and corrected. Validating proper ownership of files against user s permissions, will reduce the risk of inadvertent data compromise. The detection of extraneous directories and files hidden amongst user home directories is important for identifying potential compromises. The first runs of these utilities detected over 350,000 files with problems. With periodic scans, automated correction of problems takes only minutes. Tools for detecting these types of problems as well as their development techniques will be discussed with emphasis on consistency, portability and efficiency for both UNICOS and IRIX.

Cardo, Nicholas P.↗

Spaceflight Operations Services Grid (SOSG)

In an effort to adapt existing space flight operations services to new emerging Grid technologies we are developing a Grid-based prototype space flight operations Grid. This prototype is based on the operational services being provided to the International Space Station's Payload operations located at the Marshall Space Flight Center, Alabama. The prototype services will be Grid or Web enabled and provided to four user communities through portal technology. Users will have the opportunity to assess the value and feasibility of Grid technologies to their specific areas or disciplines. In this presentation descriptions of the prototype development, User-based services, Grid-based services and status of the project will be presented. Expected benefits, findings and observations (if any) to date will also be discussed. The focus of the presentation will be on the project in general, status to date and future plans. The End-use services to be included in the prototype are voice, video, telemetry, commanding, collaboration tools and visualization among others. Security is addressed throughout the project and is being designed into the Grid technologies and standards development. The project is divided into three phases. Phase One establishes the baseline User-based services required for space flight operations listed above. Phase Two involves applying Gridlweb technologies to the User-based services and development of portals for access by users. Phase Three will allow NASA and end users to evaluate the services and determine the future of the technology as applied to space flight operational services. Although, Phase One, which includes the development of the quasi-operational User-based services of the prototype, development will be completed by March 2004, the application of Grid technologies to these services will have just begun. We will provide status of the Grid technologies to the individual User-based services. This effort will result in an extensible environment that incorporates existing and new spaceflight services into a standards-based framework providing current and future NASA programs with cost savings and new and evolvable methods to conduct science. This project will demonstrate how the use of new programming paradigms such as web and grid services can provide three significant benefits to the cost-effective delivery of spaceflight services. They will enable applications to operate more efficiently by being able to utilize pooled resources. They will also permit the reuse of common services to rapidly construct new and more powerful applications. Finally they will permit easy and secure access to services via a combination of grid and portal technology by a distributed user community consisting of NASA operations centers, scientists, the educational community and even the general population as outreach. The approach will be to deploy existing mission support applications such as the Telescience Resource Kit (TReK) and new applications under development, such as the Grid Video Distribution System (GViDS), together with existing grid applications and services such as high-performance computing and visualization services provided by NASA s Information Power Grid (IPG) in the MSFC s Payload Operations Integration Center (POIC) HOSC Annex. Once the initial applications have been moved to the grid, a process will begin to apply the new programming paradigms to integrate them where possible. For example, with GViDS, instead of viewing the Distribution service as an application that must run on a single node, the new approach is to build it such that it can be dispatched across a pool of resources in response to dynamic loads. To make this a reality, reusable services will be critical, such as a brokering service to locate appropriate resource within the pool. This brokering service can then be used by other applications such as the TReK. To expand further, if the GViDS application is constructed using a services-based mel, then other applications such as the Video Auditorium can then use GViDS as a service to easily incorporate these video streams into a collaborative conference. Finally, as these applications are re-factored into this new services-based paradigm, the construction of portals to integrate them will be a simple process. As a result, portals can be tailored to meet the requirements of specific user communities.

Bradford, Robert N.↗

Using Science Driven Technologies for the Defense and Security Applications

For the past three decades, Earth science remote sensing technologies have been providing enormous amounts of useful data and information in broadening our understanding of our home planet as a system. This research, as it has expanded our learning process, has also generated additional questions. This has further resulted in establishing new science requirements, which have culminated in defining and pushing the state-of-the-art technology needs. NASA s Earth science program has deployed 18 highly complex satellites, with a total of 80 sensors, so far and is in a process of defining and launching multiple observing systems in the next decade. Due to the heightened security alert of the nation, researchers and technologists are paying serious attention to the use of these science driven technologies for dual use. In other words, how such sophisticated observing and measuring systems can be used in detecting multiple types of security concerns with a substantial lead time so that the appropriate law enforcement agencies can take adequate steps to defuse any potential risky scenarios. This paper examines numerous NASA technologies such as laser/lidar systems, microwave and millimeter wave technologies, optical observing systems, high performance computational techniques for rapid analyses, and imaging products that can have a tremendous pay off for security applications.

Habib, Shahid↗

ISS Radiation Shielding and Acoustic Simulation Using an Immersive Environment

The International Space Station Environment Simulator (ISSES) is a virtual reality application that uses high-performance computing, graphics, and audio rendering to simulate the radiation and acoustic environments of the International Space Station (ISS). This CAVE application allows the user to maneuver to different locations inside or outside of the ISS and interactively compute and display the radiation dose at a point. The directional dose data is displayed as a color-mapped sphere that indicates the relative levels of radiation from all directions about the center of the sphere. The noise environment is rendered in real time over headphones or speakers and includes non-spatial background noise, such as air-handling equipment, and spatial sounds associated with specific equipment racks, such as compressors or fans. Changes can be made to equipment rack locations that produce changes in both the radiation shielding and system noise. The ISSES application allows for interactive investigation and collaborative trade studies between radiation shielding and noise for crew safety and comfort.

Verhage, Joshua E.↗