Project Proposed: This project, acquiring a new computational science and engineering cluster, seeks to provide the faculty and students regular access to a modern, on-campus parallel computer for their research. Servicing Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Physics and Space Science, Marine and Environmental Engineering, Oceanography, and Mathematical Sciences, the project aims to continue conducting research involving parallel computing in a wide variety of disciplines. Due to its age, an existing Beowulf Cluster acquired in 2001 has proved insufficient to conduct the current research and more powerful computing resources are sought. The proposed instrument consists of a 48 node cluster where each node has 2 quad-core 2 GHz CPUs. The computing power of this machine will enable the large-scale simulations needed in the application areas of ocean modeling, space weather, and material science. In these areas researchers have simulation codes, but need increased computing power to do the required runs. The new machine is expected to allow greater fidelity simulation on important application, such as the impact of space radiations on astronauts and electronic components on satellites. Other applications need the increased computing power and are beginning to parallelize their codes.
Broader Impacts: This project contributes to increase on-campus access for students to develop their parallel programming skills. Building on past experience, careers in high performance and parallel computing will be encouraged. The students will be trained more in depth in the area and Parallel Computing will continue to be part of research at the institution.
