One outcome of the NSF-sponsored workshop 'NSF Workshop on Cyber-Fluid Dynamics: New Frontiers in Research and Education' held July 19-20, 2007 was a recommendation that the fluid mechanics community move toward consolidating computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tools as well as libraries of reference numerical solutions and experimental data (www.nsfcyberfluids. gatech.edu/). A number of communities have benefited from such a software consolidation. These include the biological molecular dynamics community with NAMD (http://www/ks.uiuc.edu/Research/namd) and GROMACS (www.gromacs.org), the weather modeling community with WRF (3www.wrf-model.org), and the geodynamics community with CIG (www.geodynamics.org/). Among the benefits of such a consolidation would be: lowering barriers to innovation in modeling and numerical methods by providing a software platform for such innovation, increasing productivity of CFD-based research by providing well characterized and well established tools for such research, enabling fluid dynamics research through access to a wide array of reliable experimental and computational data, and improving standards for verification and validation to improve reliability of CFD solutions. To further pursue the possibility and potential processes for developing community software and data resources, a follow-up workshop specifically focused on the development and consolidation of such community resources is planned. The objectives of this workshop are three fold: 1. To explore the likely value and practical issues associated with development of fluid dynamics community software and data resources. 2. To develop a set of recommendations regarding whether and how to move forward to develop such resources. 3. To identify a group of fluid dynamics researchers who will participate in whatever development process is recommended. This award is primarily for participant support costs and will be used to attract a diverse workshop particiation.
This workhop grant is cofunded by the ENG, OCI, and CISE Directorates.
