Acquisition of Scientific Computing Equipment: Enhancing Research in Applied Mathematics and Computation

Southern Methodist University, Dallas TX

Investigators

Abstract

0520428 Abstract: Peter K. Moore The Department of Mathematics at Southern Methodist University will purchase: a SGI Altix 350 with 4 processors and 64GB RAM; a Rocketcalc PC cluster with 32 Xeon processors each with 2 GB RAM, and Infiniband 10 Gbps switch; a SGI Tezro Graphics workstation with 6 GB RAM; one APC 3000VA Smart-UPS; one APC 1500VA Smart-UPS; and 8 and a 32 pack MATLAB license; each with the new distributed computing toolbox; and the graphics packages AVS and Tecplot 10. With this equipment advances will be made in understanding: mechanisms of liquid-vapor and solid-liquid interfaces; spatially- and physiologically-structured biological systems; turbulence models for the Navier-Stokes (NS) and magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) equations; and sintering and grooving of materials. It will also permit the development of general purpose algorithms including: parallel algorithms for multiphase, multicomponent porous media flow, two-point boundary value problems, and high-frequency scattering problems; and extension of adaptive finite element methods to bifurcation analysis of steady-state and time-dependent behavior of reaction-diffusion systems. A new course will be created to train students in parallel computation built around an 8-processor cluster and MATLAB with the distributed computing toolbox.