This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
Model-based simulation is a computational approach that enables manufacturing firms to perform virtual prototyping instead of relying exclusively on physical prototyping. Research by the Council on Competitiveness indicates that leveraging cyberinfrastructure to do virtual prototyping is a "game changing" technology for manufacturing companies. If such companies cannot leverage established, proven technologies to improve their processes, they will continue to have difficulties competing in the global marketplace. Unfortunately, manufacturers today are not able to apply available HPC resources at scale to do virtual prototyping. This unmet potential is the result of a fundamental disconnect between the computational scientific community and the manufacturing industry. This disconnect could be overcome through a major NSF manufacturing modeling, simulation and data analysis discovery program. However, the success of such a program requires a catalyst to enable manufacturing firms to leverage available HPC resources and drive research on ultra-scale challenge problems in computational science with manufacturing applications. This proposal describes a study to gather the requirements for a Software Application Discovery Initiative (SADI) Center to act as the necessary catalyst. The proposed study will involve the following activities: ? Hold a series of workshops with key thought leaders representing the industry user community, ISV companies, HPC centers, computational science academic researchers and non-profit organizations. ? Gather feedback through periodic collaboration and reviews through personal interaction with key individuals and organizations, and through public briefing opportunities to engage in the larger academic and industry communities. ? Develop a set of recommendations for a major NSF manufacturing modeling, simulation and data analysis discovery program through engagement in the workshops and personal interactions. ? Generate a final report that defines the proposed center?s goals, founding industry participants, organizational structure, ultra-scale computational discovery challenges, and recommendations on closing the collaborative computational science innovation loop.
