HPC Symposium, Feb. 25, 2015

Hsu research group discusses HPC resources used in study of coastal processes and carbon cycle

River plume laden with high concentration of terrestrial sediment
River plume laden with high concentration of terrestrial sediment after a major flooding event of a small mountainous river in the west coast of Taiwan. SAR image courtesy of Prof. Chang at Center for Space & Remote Sensing Research, National Central Univ., Taiwan.
Associate Professor Tian-Jian (Tom) Hsu, Civil and Environmental Engineering, led the February session of the High Performance Computing (HPC) Symposium Series on February 25.

Hsu presented an overview of his research group’s use of UD computing clusters and the software that he and his research team uses to study costal processes. He also discussed some of the impacts of their research including a better understanding of the Carbon Cycle—a crucial aspect of studying climate change.

His graduate students presented their experience using software on Mills, Chimera, and XSEDE to study coastal processes, including sediment distribution, the dynamics of river plumes, and the impacts of extreme events like whirlpools. The researchers compared the different systems and software used to process the data and create visualizations to help understand these natural events. They also presented data regarding how quickly the various clusters were able to complete the necessary processes.

Finally, the researchers explained the value of having HPC resources to use in conducting their research which led to a discussion about how to improve the access to HPC resources at the University.

After the presentation, the 20 attendees discussed both the research and the use of the Mills, Chimera, XSEDE clusters. They also discussed the importance of utilizing and developing open-source software to increase collaboration across disciplines and universities that will allow for a better understanding of costal processes and their impact on climate studies.

The next HPC Symposium session, featuring a presentation by the Vlachos Research Group about their use of HPC resources in modeling biomass refining, will be held on June 24. (Register)

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