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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 991 records · Page 55

On Social Optima of Non-Cooperative Mean Field Games

This paper studies the social optima in noncooperative mean-field games for a large population of agents with heterogeneous stochastic dynamic systems. Each agent seeks to maximize an individual utility functional, and utility functionals of different agents are coupled through a mean field term that depends on the mean of the population states/controls. The paper has the following contributions. First, we derive a set of control strategies for the agents that possess *-Nash equilibrium property, and converge to the mean-field Nash equilibrium as the population size goes to infinity. Second, we study the social optimal in the mean field game. We derive the conditions, termed the socially optimal conditions, under which the *-Nash equilibrium of the mean field game maximizes the social welfare. Third, a primal-dual algorithm is proposed to compute the *-Nash equilibrium of the mean field game. Since the *-Nash equilibrium of the mean field game is socially optimal, we can compute the equilibrium by solving the social welfare maximization problem, which can be addressed by a decentralized primal-dual algorithm. Numerical simulations are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Li, Sen↗

Butterfly Factorization Via Randomized Matrix-Vector Multiplications

This paper presents an adaptive randomized algorithm for computing the butterfly factorization of an m × n matrix with m ≈ n provided that both the matrix and its transpose can be rapidly applied to arbitrary vectors. The resulting factorization is composed of O(log n) sparse factors, each containing O(n) nonzero entries. The factorization can be attained using O(n 3/2 log n) computation and O(n log n) memory resources. Furthermore, the proposed algorithm can be implemented in parallel and can apply to matrices with strong or weak admissibility conditions arising from surface integral equation solvers as well as multi-frontal-based finite-difference, finite-element, or finite-volume solvers. A distributed-memory parallel implementation of the algorithm demonstrates excellent scaling behavior.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

High-precision arithmetic in mathematical physics

For many scientific calculations, particularly those involving empirical data, IEEE 32-bit floating-point arithmetic produces results of sufficient accuracy, while for other applications IEEE 64-bit floating-point is more appropriate. But for some very demanding applications, even higher levels of precision are often required. Furthermore, this article discusses the challenge of high-precision computation, in the context of mathematical physics, and highlights what facilities are required to support future computation, in light of emerging developments in computer architecture.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

A backward SDE method for uncertainty quantification in deep learning

Here, we develop a backward stochastic differential equation based probabilistic machine learning method, which formulates a class of stochastic neural networks as a stochastic optimal control problem. An efficient stochastic gradient descent algorithm is introduced with the gradient computed through a backward stochastic differential equation. Convergence analysis for stochastic gradient descent optimization and numerical experiments for applications of stochastic neural networks are carried out to validate our methodology in both theory and performance.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Performability evaluation of the SIFT computer

Performability modeling and evaluation techniques are applied to the SIFT computer as it might operate in the computational evironment of an air transport mission. User-visible performance of the total system (SIFT plus its environment) is modeled as a random variable taking values in a set of levels of accomplishment. These levels are defined in terms of four attributes of total system behavior: safety, no change in mission profile, no operational penalties, and no economic process whose states describe the internal structure of SIFT as well as relavant conditions of the environment. Base model state trajectories are related to accomplishment levels via a capability function which is formulated in terms of a 3-level model hierarchy. Performability evaluation algorithms are then applied to determine the performability of the total system for various choices of computer and environment parameter values. Numerical results of those evaluations are presented and, in conclusion, some implications of this effort are discussed.

Meyer, J. F.↗

Numerical solutions of the Navier-Stokes equations for transonic afterbody flows

The time dependent Navier-Stokes equations in mass averaged variables are solved for transonic flow over axisymmetric boattail plume simulator configurations. Numerical solution of these equations is accomplished with the unsplit explict finite difference algorithm of MacCormack. A grid subcycling procedure and computer code vectorization are used to improve computational efficiency. The two layer algebraic turbulence models of Cebeci-Smith and Baldwin-Lomax are employed for investigating turbulence closure. Two relaxation models based on these baseline models are also considered. Results in the form of surface pressure distribution for three different circular arc boattails at two free stream Mach numbers are compared with experimental data. The pressures in the recirculating flow region for all separated cases are poorly predicted with the baseline turbulence models. Significant improvements in the predictions are usually obtained by using the relaxation models.

Swanson, R. C., Jr.↗

Investigation, Development, and Evaluation of Performance Proving for Fault-tolerant Computers

A number of methodologies for verifying systems and computer based tools that assist users in verifying their systems were developed. These tools were applied to verify in part the SIFT ultrareliable aircraft computer. Topics covered included: STP theorem prover; design verification of SIFT; high level language code verification; assembly language level verification; numerical algorithm verification; verification of flight control programs; and verification of hardware logic.

Levitt, K. N.↗

Boost-phase discrimination research activities

Theoretical research in two areas was performed. The aerothermodynamics research focused on the hard-body and rocket plume flows. Analytical real gas models to describe finite rate chemistry were developed and incorporated into the three-dimensional flow codes. New numerical algorithms capable of treating multi-species reacting gas equations and treating flows with large gradients were also developed. The computational chemistry research focused on the determination of spectral radiative intensity factors, transport properties and reaction rates. Ab initio solutions to the Schrodinger equation provided potential energy curves transition moments (radiative probabilities and strengths) and potential energy surfaces. These surfaces were then coupled with classical particle reactive trajectories to compute reaction cross-sections and rates.

Cooper, David M.↗

On the computation of near wake, aerobrake flowfields

Simulations of the near wake flowfield behind three aerobrakes have been implemented with Program LAURA, an algorithm for obtaining the numerical solution to the governing equations for three-dimensional, viscous, hypersonic flows in chemical and thermal nonequilibrium. Emphasis is placed on understanding the conditons which are likely to cause the shear layer to impinge on a payload positioned behind the aerobrake. A linear relationship between shear layer deflection angle and angle of attack (or lift-to-drag ratio) has been identified in several ground based tests. A similar relation appears in the numerical simulations, though there is some evidence that deflection angels may increase somewhat due to the effects of gas chemistry. Shear layer impingement can raise local heating levels a factor of 10 higher than levels present without impingement. Payload heating levels near impingement points are a larger percentage of stagnation point heating levels at higher altitudes and peak payload heating levels are likely to occur earlier in the trajectory than peak heating on the forebody stagnation point.

Gnoffo, Peter A.↗

Hypersonic flow past open cavities

The hypersonic flow over a cavity is investigated. The time-dependent compressible Navier-Stokes equations are numerically solved. An implicit algorithm, with a subiteration procedure to recover time accuracy, is used to perform the time-accurate computations. The objective of the study is to investigate the effects of Reynolds number and cavity dimensions. The comparsion of the computations with available experimental data, in terms of time mean static pressure, heat transfer, and Mach number, show good agreement. In the computations large vortex structures, which adversely affect the cavity flow characteristics, are observed at the rear of the cavity. A self-sustained oscillatory motion occurs within the cavity over a range of Reynolds number and cavity dimensions. The frequency spectra of the oscillations show good agreement with a modified semiempirical relation.

Morgenstern, Algacyr, Jr.↗

TriC: Distributed-memory Triangle Counting by Exploiting the Graph Structure

Graph analytics has emerged as an important tool in the analysis of large scale data from diverse application domains such as social networks, cyber security and bioinformatics. Counting the number of triangles in a graph is a fundamental kernel with several applications such as detecting the community structure of a graph or in identifying important vertices in a graph. The ubiquity of massive datasets is driving the need to scale graph analytics on parallel systems. However, numerous challenges exist in efficiently parallelizing graph algorithms, especially on distributed-memory systems. Irregular memory accesses and communication patterns, low computation to communication ratios, and the need for frequent synchronization are some of the leading challenges. In this paper, we present TriC, our distributed-memory implementation of triangle counting in graphs using the Message Passing Interface (MPI), as a submission to the 2020 GraphChallenge competition. Using a set of synthetic and real-world inputs from the challenge, we demonstrate a speedup of up to 90x relative to previous work on 32 processor-cores of a NERSC Cori node. We also provide details from distributed runs with up to8192 processes along with strong scaling results. The observations presented in this work provide an understanding of the system-level bottlenecks at scale that specifically impact sparse-irregular workloads and will therefore benefit other efforts to parallelize graph algorithms.

Halappanavar, Mahantesh↗

Modeling Mesoscale Processes of Scalable Synthesis (Final Report)

The main objective of the center is to develop tools that can help for the understanding of equilibrium and non-equilibrium properties of nanoparticles in aqueous electrolytes. To achieve this goal, we need to develop new computational methodologies that can integrate molecular level description such as the electronic structure analysis to mesoscale description such as generalized hydrodynamics. The challenge is to develop systematic coarse graining techniques that can adaptively choose the level of description needed for the particular task. For example, if bonding breaking is involved, then one should use appropriate models from quantum mechanics to accurately model the time scale and molecular mechanism for the breaking process. However, to model transport process or the process of self-assembly, much less detailed models can be used. There are two main components to this task. One is to develop accurate models that bridge different levels of description. The classical example is the QM/MM model that bridges quantum mechanics and molecular mechanics for studying chemical reactions of large molecules. This work was awarded the Nobel prize this year. For our purpose, we also need to develop methods that bridge molecular and continuum levels of description. Another main task is to develop systematic coarse-graining methods that can give rise to accurate mesoscale and macroscale models, starting from more detailed models at the atomic or molecular scale. None of these ideas are new. By now they have been fashionable topics for quite some time. But neither problem is satisfactorily resolved. The main problem is that uncontrolled approximations are used. As a result, we have very little idea about the validity and accuracy of these models. The main purpose of the center is to exploit the Mori-Zwanzig formalism to achieve the goals stated above. The Mori-Zwanzig formalism is a general tool for eliminating degrees of freedom from existing models. What is attractive about this formalism is its generality. The flip side is that it is also somewhat of a tautology. In order to make it a practical tool, one has to make approximations and this is where the trouble comes. Instead of focusing on Mori-Zwanzig formalism, the PI proposes to study the closely related renormalization group formalism (RG). Like Mori-Zwanzig, RG is a general strategy for eliminating small scale degrees of freedom in a model. Unlike Mori-Zwanzig, RG has the advantage that at least for some problems, one can write a PDE (partial differential equation) type of model for the exact RG flow, without any approximation. This gives us a solid starting point for discussing and analyzing approximations. The PI studied approximate RG flows for turbulent diffusion and related problems. However, extending it to more practical problems proved to be hard. The second line that the PI has pursued is to develop special numerical algorithms for studying particularly important events for dynamics processes in meso-scale systems. The PI succeeded in doing so for the problem of understanding phase transition in metallic systems.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Numerical implementation of non-local polycrystal plasticity using fast Fourier transforms

Here, we present the numerical implementation of a non-local polycrystal plasticity theory using the FFT-based formulation of Suquet and co-workers. Gurtin (2002) non-local formulation, with geometry changes neglected, has been incorporated in the EVP-FFT algorithm of Lebensohn et al. (2012). Numerical procedures for the accurate estimation of higher order derivatives of micromechanical fields, required for feedback into single crystal constitutive relations, are identified and applied. A simple case of a periodic laminate made of two fcc crystals with different plastic properties is first used to assess the soundness and numerical stability of the proposed algorithm and to study the influence of different model parameters on the predictions of the non-local model. Different behaviors at grain boundaries are explored, and the one consistent with the micro-clamped condition gives the most pronounced size effect. The formulation is applied next to 3-D fcc polycrystals, illustrating the possibilities offered by the proposed numerical scheme to analyze the mechanical response of polycrystalline aggregates in three dimensions accounting for size dependence arising from plastic strain gradients with reasonable computing times.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Petascale turbulence simulation using a highly parallel fast multipole method on GPUs

This paper reports large-scale direct numerical simulations of homogeneous-isotropic fluid turbulence, achieving sustained performance of 1.08 petaflop/s on gpu hardware using single precision. The simulations use a vortex particle method to solve the Navier–Stokes equations, with a highly parallel fast multipole method (fmm) as numerical engine, and match the current record in mesh size for this application, a cube of computational points solved with a spectral method. The standard numerical approach used in this field is the pseudo-spectral method, relying on the fft algorithm as the numerical engine. The particle-based simulations presented in this paper quantitatively match the kinetic energy spectrum obtained with a pseudo-spectral method, using a trusted code. In terms of parallel performance, weak scaling results show the fmm-based vortex method achieving 74% parallel efficiency on 4096 processes (one gpu per mpi process, 3 gpus per node of the tsubame-2.0 system). The fft-based spectral method is able to achieve just 14% parallel efficiency on the same number of mpi processes (using only cpu cores), due to the all-to-all communication pattern of the fft algorithm. The calculation time for one time step was 108 s for the vortex method and 154 s for the spectral method, under these conditions. Computing with 69 billion particles, this work exceeds by an order of magnitude the largest vortex-method calculations to date.

Computer Science↗

Faster and more accurate transport procedures for HZETRN

The deterministic transport code HZETRN was developed for research scientists and design engineers studying the effects of space radiation on astronauts and instrumentation protected by various shielding materials and structures. In this work, several aspects of code verification are examined. First, a detailed derivation of the light particle (A {<=} 4) and heavy ion (A > 4) numerical marching algorithms used in HZETRN is given. References are given for components of the derivation that already exist in the literature, and discussions are given for details that may have been absent in the past. The present paper provides a complete description of the numerical methods currently used in the code and is identified as a key component of the verification process. Next, a new numerical method for light particle transport is presented, and improvements to the heavy ion transport algorithm are discussed. A summary of round-off error is also given, and the impact of this error on previously predicted exposure quantities is shown. Finally, a coupled convergence study is conducted by refining the discretization parameters (step-size and energy grid-size). From this study, it is shown that past efforts in quantifying the numerical error in HZETRN were hindered by single precision calculations and computational resources. It is determined that almost all of the discretization error in HZETRN is caused by the use of discretization parameters that violate a numerical convergence criterion related to charged target fragments below 50 AMeV. Total discretization errors are given for the old and new algorithms to 100 g/cm{sup 2} in aluminum and water, and the improved accuracy of the new numerical methods is demonstrated. Run time comparisons between the old and new algorithms are given for one, two, and three layer slabs of 100 g/cm{sup 2} of aluminum, polyethylene, and water. The new algorithms are found to be almost 100 times faster for solar particle event simulations and almost 10 times faster for galactic cosmic ray simulations.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

An implicit factored scheme for the compressible Navier-Stokes equations

An implicit finite difference scheme is developed for the numerical solution of the compressible Navier-Stokes equations in conservation-law form. The algorithm is second-order-time accurate, noniterative, and spatially factored. In order to obtain an efficient factored algorithm, the spatial cross-derivatives are evaluated explicitly. However, the algorithm is unconditionally stable and, although a three-time-level scheme, requires only two-time-levels of data storage. The algorithm is constructed in a 'delta' form (i.e., increments of the conserved variables and fluxes) that provides a direct derivation of the scheme and leads to an efficient computational algorithm. In addition, the delta form has the advantageous property of a steady-state (if one exists) independent of the size of the time step. Numerical results are presented for a two-dimensional shock boundary-layer interaction problem.

Beam, R. M.↗

A computer code for three-dimensional incompressible flows using nonorthogonal body-fitted coordinate systems

In this report, a numerical method for solving the equations of motion of three-dimensional incompressible flows in nonorthogonal body-fitted coordinate (BFC) systems has been developed. The equations of motion are transformed to a generalized curvilinear coordinate system from which the transformed equations are discretized using finite difference approximations in the transformed domain. The hybrid scheme is used to approximate the convection terms in the governing equations. Solutions of the finite difference equations are obtained iteratively by using a pressure-velocity correction algorithm (SIMPLE-C). Numerical examples of two- and three-dimensional, laminar and turbulent flow problems are employed to evaluate the accuracy and efficiency of the present computer code. The user's guide and computer program listing of the present code are also included.

Chen, Y. S.↗

Category 5 problem solution using an unstructured finite volume algorithm

For the simulation of flows with complex geometries, unstructured finite volume methods have proven to be very popular, and simulations of a large number of flows have been done with good results using this approach. Since most of the simulations to date were done for steady flows, it is not clear that present unstructured finite volume algorithms can accurately track the unsteady propagation of acoustic waves in a computation. Therefore, there is a need to assess the accuracy of these methods for acoustic calculations. In this paper, we perform the numerical simulation of a very small amplitude acoustic wave incident on the non-uniform steady flow in a quasi- 1 D convergent-divergent nozzle using an unstructured finite volume algorithm with piece-wise linear, least square reconstruction, Roe flux difference splitting, and second-order MacCormack time marching. First, the spatial accuracy of the algorithm is evaluated for the steady flow by running the simulation with a sequence of successively finer meshes. Then the unsteady numerical solution with the acoustic perturbation is presented.

Bui, Trong T.↗