FPCE High Performance Computing Center

The High Performance Computing Center at Stanford University was founded to provide high performance computing resources & services to enable computationally-intensive research within the School of Engineering. Current system status and information can be found at http://hpcc.stanford.edu/ .

Mission

The mission of the High Performance Computing Center (HPCC) at Stanford University is to support the research efforts of scientists performing sponsored research. In addition, HPCC provides support for credit-based courses within the School of Engineering.

To accomplish this, HPCC engages in the following activities:

  • Evaluates, acquires and deploys high performance computing resources, including both computing systems and software
  • Offers training workshops, seminars, and lectures in academic classes to educate and prepare new users of these resources
  • Provides expert consulting and technical documentation to assist researchers in using these resources effectively
  • Conducts research and testing of new computational techniques and technologies that enhance the capabilities of high performance computing resources
  • Collaborate with national labs, computing centers and HPC vendors to enhance the capabilities of the resources in use at the center

The turbulent flow across a Formula-1 race car and through its wheels was computed using these resources (depicted). In addition, researchers in FPCE are involved in several research programs that require large-scale massively parallel computing resources to carry out first-of-a-kind simulations. Our clusters are being used to compute the details of turbulence, acoustic fields created by helicopters, multiphase flow, advanced energy systems, scramjet combustion, shock-turbulence interactions, and many other large-scale applications in aerospace, mechanical, and naval engineering.

Resources and Support

The High Performance Computing Center deploys and operates the computational infrastructure enabling research activities of faculty, staff and students at Stanford University. HPCC also provides consulting, technical documentation and training for users of these resources.

HPCC resources include:

  • High Performance Computing (HPC) systems of a variety of architectures to enable larger simulations, analyses and faster computation times than are possible using computers available to individual researchers
  • Advanced Scientific Visualization resources including computing systems with high performance graphics hardware, large displays, display walls, and high-end pre/post processing facilities to enable large data analysis and promote discovery
  • Massive Data Storage/Archival systems to store the vast quantities of data that result from performing simulations on HPC systems and developing visualizations of large data sets

For the simulation of the jet engine combustor depicted, two major simulation codes, SUmb and CDP, are run simultaneously to compute the flow in separate areas of the domain: SUmb computes the flow in the region near the surface of the blades where compressibility and viscous effects are dominant, and CDP resolves the wake portion where the identification of the strength and location of the trailing vortices is of fundamental importance.

If you have any further questions regarding how to get access to both Stanford computing resources or obtain access to the NNSA ASC resources, please contact Steve Jones or your major advisor.