Proposal No. CTS-0320907 Principal Investigator: S. Chen, Johns Hopkins University
Multi-scale nonlinear physics is an emerging paradigm for some of the most pressing and exciting scientific problems of the 21st century. These include predicting turbulent and multiphase fluid flow, modeling atmospheric transport of bio-aerosols, nano-engineering materials and devices, and probing the cosmological distribution of matter. The length-scales involved range, literally, from the size of the universe down to the scale of elementary particles. High-performance scientific computing is an indispensable tool in tackling these challenging problems. However, the output generated by simulation of such systems is so large that long-term storage of the data at its source has been problematic. This has led to a prevalent style of research in which very valuable scientific data is used once and then discarded.
Utilizing Major Research Instrumentation Funds, the Digital Laboratory for Multiscale Sciences (DLMS) at the Johns Hopkins University will realize a new paradigm in the study of multiscale systems: that of using an integrated database and cluster as a ``virtual laboratory''. This system will allow for fast in-house simulations of the large-scale systems of interest, combined with a long-term storage capability of up to 100 Terabytes of data, search rates of about 10 Gigabytes per second, and fast, flexible computational analysis tools within the database itself. This will allow us to approach parameter space and physical domain sizes that were entirely beyond our reach. Among other projects, a simulation of incompressible fluid turbulence, at an unprecedented grid size of 550 billion points, will be performed at national laboratories and US supercomputer centers and housed and analyzed at the DLMS. We expect that breakthrough developments will be facilitated in an interdisciplinary program of research in science and engineering across the spectrum of multiscale systems.
About fifty graduate and undergraduate students and postdoctoral fellows working at the DLMS will receive training in the areas of multiscale sciences, numerical simulation, parallel computing, visualization, data analysis, and data-base technology. We will organize professional workshops introducing the tools developed for the DLMS to a wider audience of scientists. Outreach efforts will disseminate the results of our research and our scientific methods to the local schools and community.
