Computational
Facilities
 |
 |
 |
 |
UB Center for
Computational Research
In January 1999, UB President William R. Greiner formally announced the
establishment of the Center with gifts of approximately $1.2M each in computer equipment
from IBM and Silicon Graphics, Incorporated. The mission of the new Center is to support
world-class computationally-intensive research at the University, foster industrial
partnerships with UB in the high-performance computing and visualization arenas, and
serve as a focal point for technology transfer of high-performance computing and
visualization within Western New York.
CCR's computing facilities include a 58 processor IBM RS/6000 SP supercomputer, 64 processor Silicon Graphics Origin 2000 supercomputer, a Sun Enterprise 6000, and a computer visualization laboratory featuring several high-end computer graphics workstations. Taken together, the supercomputers are capable of carrying out more than 60 billion operations per second (60 Gflops). The University is an Internet2 member and a participant in NSF's very high-speed backbone network system (vBNS). CCR provides production facilities for members of the Center in order to generate hardcopy output in a variety of formats including prints, slides and video tapes. In terms of computing power, this supercomputing facility places UB in the top 10 of such facilities at universities in the United States. In addition to the computational resources, the Center will have five support personnel, two computational scientists, and two programmer/analysts. The Center has initial plans to offer seminars, workshops, and a K-12 summer program, with emphasis on computational science and engineering.
CSEE Computational
Facilities
Recognizing the impact of computer systems in civil engineering research and
practice, the department has developed a computational facility networked in Windows NT
and UNIX environments. It acquired comprehensive software in structural
analysis, computer-aided design, geotechnical analysis of foundations, slopes, and piles
under static and dynamic loading. Many of these applications are found in our
Undergraduate Computer Laboratory. Advanced finite element, finite difference, and
boundary element packages are used extensively. Several personal computer systems, micro
and minicomputer networks, and numerous satellite terminals are available within the civil
engineering buildings. The satellite terminals access the array of computer systems
operated centrally by the University Computer Center. In addition, local area networks
access SUN/Systems and PC/Windows labs. A new graphics lab and GIS and Construction
Computations lab have been opened along with a new applied artificial intelligence lab.
Researchers have exclusive access to more than 20 high-performance Windows NT workstations equipped with graphics capabilities, with specialized software for real time structural dynamics, for finite elements and for boundary elements analyses. Generic software developed by the researchers in Buffalo is accessible by students and research personnel without any additional fees in this facility. More information is available from the Department Home Page
Cornell University
Resources for computational earthquake science at Cornell range from the desktop machines of the researchers to the parallel computing and visualization resources at the Cornell Theory Center (CTC). CTC resources include the IBM RISC System/6000 Scalable POWERparallel System, or SP, a distributed memory machine dedicated to high-performance research computing. The SP consists of 160 nodes (processors with associated memory and disk). Each of CTC's 160 nodes has a large amount of scratch disk space, more than 1.8 GBytes, available to running applications. Support for parallel programming is provided by a wide variety of tools for source analysis, automatic parallelization, performance monitoring, visualization, and debugging.
In addition, CTC is a leading site for the development of Intel Clusters for computational science, developing parallel applications and tools that use each node in the cluster as a parallel resource. CTC's Intel cluster development is supported through Cornell's Intel Technology for Education 2000 grant and through corporate partnerships. CTC currently supports a 12 node cluster of Dell Power Edge 4200 2 way Pentium II SMP machines, as well interactive nodes with 8 GByte of disk space, and control resources. Research/implementation for the NT cluster includes exploration of issues such as usability, portability, interoperability, resource management, and scaling.
The visualization of research data is a crucial component of computational science and engineering and an effective means for communicating research results to a broad set of audiences. CTC offers a variety of visualization resources, in particular a three-wall CAVE virtual reality environment, and a video production suite. Visualization services include: consultation, production of animations, videos, publication graphics, development of 3-D virtual reality applications, internships for undergraduate students, and training in the use of Open DX, a recent open source release of IBM's Visualization Data Explorer (DX).
The Center for Civil Engineering Earthquake Research (CCEER) is headquartered at the Civil Engineering Department at the University of Nevada, Reno. The center has a $8.5 million state-of-the-art laboratory in the field of bridge engineering. In addition of latest equipment, the laboratory has two large powerful shake tables with the capability of simulating many earthquake.
The lab has a 5,600 sq. ft. Socketed strong floor made of 3 ft. thick reinforced concrete with sockets spaced at 2 ft. intervals both ways. Fig. 1 shows a plan view of the laboratory. The 3 ft. thick main test hall stab of reinforced concrete measures 101 x 56 ft (31 x 17 m). The main floor has a 2 x 2 ft (0.6 x 0.6 m) gridwork of tiedown or socket holes formed by 2˝ in. (63 mm) standard pipe sleeves perforating the test hall slab. The main 3 ft. thick stab was designed as a one-way slab supported by the two north-south walls of the basement and three intermediate bearing walls. The principal slab reinforcement consists of top and bottom mats of #14 grade 60 bars running in both the transverse and longitudinal directions at 12 in. on center. All of the slab-wall and wall-footing connections are monolithic. As a result, the entire basement/bearing wall/main test slab system forms a very large box girder system in the longitudinal direction. The specified compressive strength of the concrete was 4000 psi (28 MPa). Test cylinder results indicate that the actual 28-day concrete strength was about 5000 psi (34 MPa).
ImageCat, Inc., an advanced technology company, specializes in innovative solutions to risk assessment and management. Established in March 2000, the company has already developed a reputation for innovative solutions in earthquake risk assessment and reduction, quantification of the built environment, and post-disaster damage assessment. The founding members of ImageCat, each with substantial reputations in individual areas of expertise, form a core group of engineers and scientists dedicated to developing a multi-disciplinary solution to complex risk issues and problems.
An innovative flagship for the company is the application of remote sensing technologies to risk assessment and risk reduction. Supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, ImageCat’s cutting edge research focuses on the design of tools to better quantify the built environment and its exposure to risks associated with earthquakes, hurricanes, and other disasters. Current research focuses on the application of high resolution remote sensing data to quantify the shapes and heights of residential, commercial, and industrial structures. Through adaptation of this technology, ImageCat offers comprehensive, detailed, and up-to-date profiles of major cities.
A leader in integrating remotely sensed data into Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Imagecat technology “fuses” visually accurate satellite and other data with relevant geo-referenced material to provide quantitative information on numbers of structures, proportion of residential, commercial, and industrial development, numbers of households, income levels, etc.
|
|
|
|