A publication of the Office of Advanced Simulation & Computing, NA-114, NNSA Defense Programs
December 2007
NA-ASC-500-07—Issue
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Innovative Computing Technique Earns Livermore Team the Gordon Bell Prize
From left to right are the 2007 Gordon Bell winners from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory: Jim Glosli, Fred Streitz, Robert Rudd, David Richards, and Kyle Caspersen. IBM’s John Gunnels is not pictured.
A team of scientists from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Physical Sciences Directorate and IBM won the prestigious Gordon Bell Prize in Peak Performance with a breakthrough physics calculation run on the recently expanded BlueGene/L system. The award was announced at the Supercomputing 2007 conference (SC07) in Reno, Nevada. Computation Associate Director Dona Crawford said, “These scientific computing awards underscore the vital role the ASC Program plays in NNSA’s Stockpile Stewardship Program as well as in national security in a global context.”
By performing extremely large-scale molecular dynamics simulations using an innovative computational technique, the Livermore Gordon Bell team was able to study, for the first time, how a Kelvin-Helmholtz instability develops from atomic-scale fluctuations into micron-scale vortices. This simulation of unprecedented resolution was made possible by the innovative computational technique used—a technique that could change the way high-performance scientific computing is conducted.
The Kelvin-Helmholtz instability arises at the interface of fluids in shear flow and results in the formation of waves and vortices. Waves formed by Kelvin-Helmholtz instability are found diverse natural phenomena, such as waves on a windblown ocean, sand dunes, and swirling cloud billows. While Kelvin-Helmholtz instability has been thoroughly studied for years and its behavior is well understood at the macro-scale, scientists did not clearly understand how it evolved at the atomic scale until now. Understanding how matter transitions from a continuous medium at macroscopic length scales to a discrete atomistic medium at the nanoscale has important implications for such laboratory research efforts as National Ignition Facility laser fusion experiments and developing applications for nanotube technology.
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