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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 127 records · Page 7

Global Hybrid Simulations of Interaction Between Interplanetary Rotational Discontinuity and Bow Shock/Magnetosphere: Can Ion-Scale Magnetic Reconnection be Driven by Rotational Discontinuity Downstream of Quasi-Parallel Shock?

Ion-scale magnetic reconnection has been observed downstream of the terrestrial quasi-parallel (Q-∥) shock. Whether it is driven by interplanetary discontinuities or turbulent Q-∥ shock, however, is unclear. Using three-dimensional global hybrid simulation, we investigate the generation of magnetic reconnection downstream of the Q-∥ shock, while an interplanetary rotational discontinuity (RD) is launched to the bow shock. Cases with various solar wind Alfvén Mach numbers, M A = 3.0 to 8, and propagation directions of the RD are presented. The propagation direction n is assumed to be in the GSE xz plane and pointing earthward, with n = (-sin(θ 12 /2),0,-cos(θ 12 /2)), where θ 12 is the angle between the upstream (B1) and downstream (B2) magnetic fields across the transmitted RD. It is found that magnetic reconnection occurs inside the RD downstream of the Q-∥ shock, forming flux ropes extending along the dawn-dusk direction about tens of ion inertial lengths. Large-amplitude low-frequency waves originated from the Q-∥ shock lead to the bending and squeezing of the field lines around the RD, which play an important role in triggering reconnection inside the RD. As the RD impacts the dayside magnetopause, magnetopause reconnection takes place between the field lines behind the RD and geomagnetic field lines. Nevertheless, no reconnection is found downstream of the Q-∥ shock itself or outside the RD in the magnetosheath. The existent and structure of reconnection in the magnetosheath are found to strongly depend on the parameters M A and n. Our simulation shows that ion-scale magnetic reconnection is driven by an external driver in the form of the compression of an RD around the bow shock and in the magnetosheath, rather than caused by the turbulent Q-∥ shock alone.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Fit Fly: A Case Study of Interconnect Innovation through Parallel Simulation

To meet the demand for exascale-level performance from high-performance computing (HPC) interconnects, many system architects are turning to simulation results for accurate and reliable predictions of the performance of prospective technologies. Testing full-scale networks with a variety of benchmarking tools, including synthetic workloads and application traces, can give crucial insight into what ideas are most promising without needing to physically construct a test network. While flexible, however, this approach is extremely compute time intensive. We address this time complexity challenge through the use of large-scale, optimistic parallel simulation that ultimately leads to faster HPC network architecture innovations. In this paper we demonstrate this innovation capability through a real-world network design case study. Specifically, we have simulated and compared four extreme-scale interconnects: Dragonfly, Megafly, Slim Fly, and a new dual-rail-dual-plane variation of the Slim Fly network topology. We present this new variant of Slim Fly, dubbed Fit Fly, to show how interconnect innovation and evaluation-beyond what is possible through analytic methods-can be achieved through parallel simulation. We validate and compare the model with various network designs using the CODES interconnect simulation framework. By running large-scale simulations in a parallel environment, we are able to quickly generate reliable performance results that can help network designers break ground on the next generation of high-performance network designs.

High Performance Computing↗

Performance Evaluation of Different Parallel Programming Models in SCALE-Shift Sequences for Criticality and Shielding Applications [Abstract]

The SCALE code system has been widely used for nuclear criticality safety, reactor physics, radiation shielding, source term generation, and inventory analyses by researchers, industry, and regulatory bodies. Although limited support for shared- and distributed-memory parallel processing was introduced via C++ threading, OpenMP, and MPI, a hybrid parallel programming model with both distributed- and shared-memory parallelism has not been fully supported in the SCALE code system.

Nuclear Criticality Safety Program (NCSP)↗

Dynamic Phase Alignment in Inertial Alfven Turbulence

In weakly-collisional plasma environments with sufficiently low electron beta, Alfvenic turbulence transforms into inertial Alfvenic turbulence at scales below the electron skin-depth. We argue that, in inertial Alfvenic turbulence, both energy and generalized kinetic helicity exhibit direct cascades. We demonstrate that the two cascades are compatible due to the existence of a strong scale-dependence of the phase alignment angle between velocity and magnetic field fluctuations, with the phase alignment angle scaling as proportional to the perpendicular wavenumber to the power of -1. The kinetic and magnetic energy spectra scale as the perpendicular wavenumber to the power of -5/3 and -11/3, respectively. As a result of the dual direct cascade, the generalized-helicity spectrum scales as the perpendicular wavenumber to the power of -5/3, implying progressive balancing of the turbulence as the cascade proceeds to smaller scales in the sub-electron-skin-depth range. Turbulent eddies exhibit a phase-space anisotropy, with the parallel wavenumber scaling as the perpendicular wavenumber to the power of 5/3, consistent with critically-balanced inertial Alfven fluctuations. Our results may be applicable to a variety of geophysical, space, and astrophysical environments, including the Earth's magnetosheath and ionosphere, solar corona, non-relativistic pair plasmas, as well as to strongly rotating non-ionized fluids.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

The Generalized Green’s function Cluster Expansion: A Python package for simulating polarons

We present an efficient implementation of the Generalized Green’s function Cluster Expansion (GGCE), which is a new method for computing the ground-state properties and dynamics of polarons (single electrons coupled to lattice vibrations) in model electron-phonon systems. The GGCE works at arbitrary temperature and is well suited for a variety of electron-phonon couplings, including, but not limited to, site and bond Holstein and Peierls (Su-SchriefferHeeger) couplings, and couplings to multiple phonon modes with different energy scales and coupling strengths. Quick calculations can be performed efficiently on a laptop using solvers from NumPy and SciPy, or in parallel at scale using the PETSc sparse linear solver engine.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Scaling Out a Combinatorial Algorithm for Discovering Carcinogenic Gene Combinations to Thousands of GPUs

Cancer is a leading cause of death in the US, second only to heart disease. It is primarily a result of a combination of an estimated two-nine genetic mutations (multi-hit combinations). Although a body of research has identified hundreds of cancer-causing genetic mutations, we don’t know the specific combination of mutations responsible for specific instances of cancer for most cancer types. An approximate algorithm for solving the weighted set cover problem was previously adapted to identify combinations of genes with mutations that may be responsible for individual instances of cancer. However, the algorithm’s computational requirement scales exponentially with the number of genes, making it impractical for identifying more than three-hit combinations, even after the algorithm was parallelized and scaled up to a V100 GPU. Since most cancers have been estimated to require more than three hits, we scaled out the algorithm to identify combinations of four or more hits using 1000 nodes (6000 V100 GPUs with ≈48×106 processing cores) on the Summit supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Efficiently scaling out the algorithm required a series of algorithmic innovations and optimizations for balancing an exponentially divergent workload across processors and for minimizing memory latency and inter-node communication. We achieved an average strong scaling efficiency of 90.14% (80.96%–97.96% for 200 to 1000 nodes), compared to a 100 node run, with 84.18% scaling efficiency for 1000 nodes. With experimental validation, the multi-hit combinations identified here could provide further insight into the etiology of different cancer subtypes and provide a rational basis for targeted combination therapy.

Dash, Sajal↗

Formal Definitions and Performance Comparison of Consistency Models for Parallel File Systems

The semantics of HPC storage systems are defined by the consistency models to which they abide. Storage consistency models have been less studied than their counterparts in memory systems, with the exception of the POSIX standard and its strict consistency model. The use of POSIX consistency imposes a performance penalty that becomes more significant as the scale of parallel file systems increases and the access time to storage devices, such as node-local solid storage devices, decreases. While some efforts have been made to adopt relaxed storage consistency models, these models are often defined informally and ambiguously as by-products of a particular implementation. Here in this work, we establish a connection between memory consistency models and storage consistency models and revisit the key design choices of storage consistency models from a high-level perspective. Further, we propose a formal and unified framework for defining storage consistency models and a layered implementation that can be used to easily evaluate their relative performance for different I/O workloads. Finally, we conduct a comprehensive performance comparison of two relaxed consistency models on a range of commonly seen parallel I/O workloads, such as checkpoint/restart of scientific applications and random reads of deep learning applications. We demonstrate that for certain I/O scenarios, a weaker consistency model can significantly improve the I/O performance. For instance, in small random reads that are typically found in deep learning applications, session consistency achieved a 5x improvement in I/O bandwidth compared to commit consistency, even at small scales.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Massively parallel quantum chemical density matrix renormalization group method

Here, we present, to the best of our knowledge, the first attempt to exploit the supercomputer platform for quantum chemical density matrix renormalization group (QCDMRG) calculations. We have developed the parallel scheme based on the in-house MPI global memory library, which combines operator and symmetry sector parallelisms, and tested its performance on three different molecules, all typical candidates for QC-DMRG calculations. In case of the largest calculation, which is the nitrogenase FeMo cofactor cluster with the active space comprising 113 electrons in 76 orbitals and bond dimension equal to 6000, our parallel approach scales up to approximately 2000 CPU cores.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Scalable Parallel Measurement of Individual Nitrogen-Vacancy Centers

The nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond is a solid-state spin defect that has been widely adopted for quantum sensing and quantum information processing applications. Typically, experiments are performed either with a single isolated NV center or with an unresolved ensemble of many NV centers, resulting in a trade-off between measurement speed and spatial resolution or control over individual defects. In this work, we introduce an experimental platform that bypasses this trade-off by addressing multiple optically resolved NV centers in parallel. We perform charge- and spin-state manipulations selectively on multiple NV centers from within a larger set, and we manipulate and measure the electronic spin states of over 100 NV centers in parallel. We show that the high signal-to-noise ratio of the measurements enables the detection of shot-to-shot pairwise correlations between the spin states of 108 NV centers, corresponding to the simultaneous measurement of 5778 unique correlation coefficients. We discuss how our platform can be scaled to parallel experiments with thousands of individually resolved NV centers. These results enable parallelized high-throughput sensing experiments that retain the spatial resolution of single defects and will, thereby, help to unlock advances in applications such as single-molecule NMR and characterization of integrated circuits. In addition, our approach to multiplexing provides a natural platform for the application of recently developed correlated sensing techniques.

NV centers↗

Parallel Multigrid in Time and Space for Extreme-Scale Computational Science

The coming massive parallelism of exascale computing presents a pressing challenge for the many DOE simulations of time-dependent partial differential equations, which typically use traditional sequential time stepping methods. Since this traditional approach is inherently serial, it presents a sequential bottleneck when moving to exascale computing, because future performance gains will come through greater concurrency, not faster clock speeds. Thus, the goal of this work is to research parallelism in time, i.e., methods that compute multiple time values simultaneously, not sequentially. The focus will be on hyperbolic and chaotic problems of programmatic interest to DOE, with the goal of enabling scalable simulations of time-dependent hyperbolic and chaotic problems on future architectures.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Modeling Large-Scale Slim Fly Networks Using Parallel Discrete-Event Simulation

As supercomputers approach exascale performance, the increased number of processors translates to an increased demand on the underlying network interconnect. We present that the slim fly network topology, a new low-diameter, low-latency, and low-cost interconnection network, is gaining interest as one possible solution for next-generation supercomputing interconnect systems. In this article, we present a high-fidelity slim fly packet-level model leveraging the Rensselaer Optimistic Simulation System (ROSS) and Co-Design of Exascale Storage (CODES) frameworks. We validate the model with published work before scaling the network size up to an unprecedented 1 million compute nodes and confirming that the slim fly observes peak network throughput at extreme scale. In addition to synthetic workloads, we evaluate large-scale slim fly models with real communication workloads from applications in the Design Forward program with over 110,000 MPI processes. We show strong scaling of the slim fly model on an Intel cluster achieving a peak network packet transfer rate of 2.3 million packets per second and processing over 7 billion discrete events using 128 MPI tasks. Enabled by the strong performance capabilities of the model, we perform a detailed application trace and routing protocol performance study. Lastly, through analysis of metrics such as packet latency, hop count, and congestion, we find that the slim fly network is able to leverage simple minimal routing and achieve the same performance as more complex adaptive routing for tested DOE benchmark applications.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Scalable line and plane relaxation in a parallel structured multigrid solver

The efficient solution of sparse, linear systems that arise through the discretization of partial differential equations remains a key challenge for a range of high performance scientific simulations. One approach for reducing data movement and improving performance is by exposing and exploiting structure in a problem through the use of robust structured multilevel solvers. By choosing coarsening that preserves the structure of the problem, these methods maintain efficient structured computation and communication throughout the multigrid hierarchy. However, when coarsening is not permitted to be dependent on the operator, anisotropy must be addressed by the smoother — producing error compatible for coarse-grid correction with structured coarsening. Here, the components required in a scalable parallel structured solver are described with a focus on memory and communication efficiency of robust smoothers. While the implementation of communication and memory reduction techniques in smoothers integrated in a complete 3D solver present a significant engineering challenge, a novel approach is proposed that addresses these challenges systematically through a change to the solver’s execution model. Enabled by user-level threading paired with a set of data and communication abstractions, this approach permits seamless aggregation of communication in plane smoothers — directly reusing code for a 2D distributed multilevel cycle. Results show an effective reduction in communication costs for coarse-grid problems, and result in a speedup of 8.7x in smoothing routines shown in Fig. 12 using this approach. This produces a significant improvement to strong scalability while maintaining favorable weak scaling behavior. Finally, a parallel scaling study using a series of refined meshes is included that demonstrates the effectiveness of this approach in an application of interest.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Parallel Algorithms for Computing the Tensor-Train Decomposition

The tensor-train (TT) decomposition expresses a tensor in a data-sparse format used in molecular simulations, high-order correlation functions, and optimization. In this paper, we propose four parallelizable algorithms that compute the TT format from various tensor inputs: (1) Parallel-TTSVD for traditional format, (2) PSTT and its variants for streaming data, (3) Tucker2TT for Tucker format, and (4) TT-fADI for solutions of Sylvester tensor equations. We provide theoretical guarantees of accuracy, parallelization methods, scaling analysis, and numerical results. For example, for a d-dimension tensor in $\mathbb{R}$ $n\times∙∙∙$$\times$$n$ a two-sided sketching algorithm PSTT2 is shown to have a memory complexity of $O(n^{[d/2]})$, improving upon $O(n^{d—1})$ from previous algorithms.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Dilute Source CO 2 Capture: Management of Atmospheric Coal-Produced Legacy Emissions (Final Technical Report)

This report presents the scientific and technical findings by Carbon Engineering Ltd (CE) resulting from the DOE sponsored research and development project on Direct Air Capture (DAC) process. The work was performed by CE under the Award DE-FE0026861 from the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL). The work plan was centered on advancing the Recipient’s DAC technology, developing a better understanding of its performance and cost. The report outlines the results from two key activities that were performed under this award: Studying the performance characteristics of the DAC plant at both pilot and lab scale Techno-economic analysis (TEA) to study two implementations of CE’s proprietary DAC process: i) An early commercial DAC process that captures ~1 MT CO 2 /year of atmospheric CO 2 (Baseline case), and ii) A modified early commercial DAC process that captures 1 MT CO 2 /year of flue gas CO 2 downstream of a subcritical PC post-CCS power plant (Case 1 Option C). Within the first key activity of the project, significant operational improvements and learnings were realized, including for key equipment in the DAC process in addition to the overall system. Learnings included impact of equipment design on the capture, calcination and slaking processes, and operational parameter modifications for optimizing the pelletization process, along with the complex interactions and associated considerations of these on overall system performance. In parallel, benchtop scale equipment was successfully utilized to validate pilot scale data, such as, retention in the pellet reactor, and capture performance parameters of the air contactor. CE continues to conduct core research and development activities; the learnings from this DOE project will contribute to the design, testing and operation activities of CE’s fully integrated DAC validation plant, as well as the first commercial DAC plant. The second key activity incorporated the above learnings, as well as input from vendors and EPC experts, to produce the TEA report. More specifically, the TEA results were based on measured pilot plant performance data for all major unit operations, and on an energy and material balance for the process at commercial scale computed using an Aspen One® process simulation. The cost estimation methodology follows AACE International recommended practices; with an uncertainty range of -15%/+30%. Depending on financial assumptions, energy costs, and the specific choice of inputs and outputs, the levelized cost per ton CO 2 captured from the atmosphere for an early commercial plant for the baseline case ranges from 227 to 304 $/t-CO 2 . And, the levelized cost to capture 98% of the flue gas CO 2 emissions in a subcritical PC power plant (Case 1 Option C) through a combination of Cansolv carbon capture system and a modified DAC system was estimated to range from 109 to 160 $/MWh of net power generated. Process improvement opportunities identified during this work, in addition to cost reduction opportunities identified during the Value Engineering exercise associated with the Baseline case indicate that significant reductions in capital costs are available as CE scales up and proceeds through deployment of initial facilities.

20 FOSSIL-FUELED POWER PLANTS↗

Performing k eff Validation of As-Loaded Criticality Safety Calculations Using UNF-ST&DARDS: Sensitivity Calculations

The general method for performing validation of as loaded criticality safety calculations using UNF ST&DARDS is presented in a paper by Clarity, which includes a description of the UNF-ST&DARDS system. Proof-of-principle analyses were performed in the summer of 2019 for MPC-32 dual purpose canisters (DPCs) containing pressurized water reactor (PWR) fuel assemblies. Summaries of these results are presented in this and a companion paper for this conference. The current paper describes the TSUNAMI-3D calculations performed to generate sensitivity data, and the companion paper discusses the selection of critical experiments applicable for validation of the 11 MPC-32 DPCs considered. The generation of sensitivity data for as-loaded spent nuclear fuel (SNF) DPCs is a challenge given the detailed model of the fuel compositions generated by UNF ST&DARDS. Each fuel assembly is modeled with its own irradiation history in 18 axial nodes, unless the fuel assembly is damaged and thus considered as fresh by design basis. This results in a set of 576 fuel compositions, each of which must be processed separately in a multigroup (MG) calculation. Therefore, a continuous-energy (CE) TSUNAMI-3D method was chosen to alleviate this challenge. Two CE TSUNAMI-3D methods are available in SCALE 6.2.3: the iterated fission probability (IFP) and contribution-linked eigenvalue sensitivity/uncertainty estimation via track-length importance characterization (CLUTCH). Since the IFP method is not feasible because of memory requirements associated with its implementation in SCALE, the CLUTCH method was selected for these calculations. CLUTCH has been implemented in SCALE in parallel, allowing long calculations to be performed in reasonable timeframes. The two primary user inputs necessary for CLUTCH calculations are the F*(r) mesh and the number of latent generations used in determining the F*(r) function. This F*(r) function is used as the importance function for fission chains originating in a given volume element (voxel), and it is calculated using the IFP method in the skipped generations. A large number of skipped generations is thus required to ensure accurate calculation of this importance function. In these calculations, 500 generations were used to calculate the F*(r) function. For more information regarding the calculation of F*(r), see Jones [4]. The remainder of this paper is focused on the selection of the F*(r) mesh and the number of latent generations.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Multigroup Monte Carlo on GPUs: Comparison of history- and event-based algorithms

This article presents an investigation of the performance of different multigroup Monte Carlo transport algorithms on GPUs with a discussion of both history-based and event-based approaches. Several algorithmic improvements are introduced for both approaches. By modifying the history-based algorithm that is traditionally favored in CPU-based MC codes to occasionally filter out dead particles to reduce thread divergence, performance exceeds that of either the pure history-based or event-based approaches. The impacts of several algorithmic choices are discussed, including performance studies on Kepler and Pascal generation NVIDIA GPUs for fixed source and eigenvalue calculations. Single-device performance equivalent to 20–40 CPU cores on the K40 GPU and 60–80 CPU cores on the P100 GPU is achieved. Last, in addition, nearly perfect multi-device parallel weak scaling is demonstrated on more than 16,000 nodes of the Titan supercomputer.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Nuclide Depletion Capabilities in the Shift Monte Carlo Code

A new depletion capability has been developed in the Exnihilo radiation transport code suite. This capability enables massively parallel domain-decomposed coupling between the Shift continuous-energy Monte Carlo solver and the nuclide depletion solvers in ORIGEN to perform high-performance Monte Carlo depletion calculations. This paper describes this new depletion capability and discusses its various features, including a multi-level parallel decomposition, high-order transport-depletion coupling, and energy-integrated power renormalization. Several test problems are presented to validate the new capability against other Monte Carlo depletion codes, and the parallel performance of the new capability is analyzed.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

DECA: Discrete Event inspired Cellular Automata for grain structure prediction in additive manufacturing

Microstructure largely dictates macroscopic material properties and is strongly affected by processing. Therefore, the simulation of microstructure evolution in response to thermal fields during processing is of significant interest within the computational materials science community. Additive manufacturing (AM) has emerged as a technique for producing complex geometries and unique microstructures. Yet, complex and rapid thermal cycles in AM pose computational challenges for existing microstructure models. This work proposes a discrete event inspired cellular automata (CA) approach, titled DECA, to accelerate simulation of grain structure evolution in AM. In contrast to conventional time-stepped CA models, this model directly solves the times capture events would take place allowing for stepping in events rather than time (a technique also found in the field of discrete-event simulation). In comparison to purely serial discrete-event models, DECA allows for temporary violation of the causality constraint, but detects and corrects these violations, leading to an emergent phenomenon dubbed causality rippling, in which previously calculated capture events are overwritten. The amount of repeated calculations, defined by the capture ratio, is taken as a measure of computational inefficiency, and the model parameters that affect this ratio are evaluated. The new DECA approach was found to be more computationally efficient than conventional time-stepped CA models while guaranteeing an accurate solution, which can only be achieved in the conventional models for vanishingly small time steps. Finally, opportunities for parallelization and scaling of the new approach are discussed.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗