ILLINOISROCSTAR LLC — Department of Energy SBIR Phase I: 02c

Description

Problem Being Addressed: Lack of availability, usability, and the cost of development, ownership, and operation of high performance compute-ready simulation capabilities are significant barriers to utilization of modeling & simulation for American industry. Most open-source, free technologies are difficult to use and/or not validated to the extent needed for industrial application. Many commercial tools that are easy to use, are very expensive to own. Hardening of currently available research-quality simulation tools can can produce capabilities that are both easy to use and free. How This Problem is Being Addressed: The goal is to harden an ASC-developed multiphysics simulation application and distribute it under an open source license that allows unrestricted commercial use. Expert users from government, industry, and academia currently employ the code on modern large cluster platforms for a variety of multiphysics simulations. When completed, this project will produce the only open source massively parallel multiphysics application that is freely available, and which stands ready to utilize the nations modern high performance computing resources. Once hardened for ease of installation and use, the package will help lower the entry barriers to high performance computing-based modeling & simulation. Commercial Applications and Other Benefits:A freely available, open, and easily extensible massively parallel-ready multiphysics simulation capability for use by engineers and analysts from industry and other environments will be generated from this project. Such a capability will significantly reduce the barrier to entry for private sector entities endeavoring to utilize multiphysics simulations and incorporate them into design processes that leverage the nations extensive computing resources. To maintain competitiveness in the modern world marketplace, simulation applications must be designed for deployment in integrated environments and coupled models, simulating ever more complex interacting systems. The licensing model under which this application will be distributed facilitates its use and extension in any environment. The benefits include increased realism, decreased time-to-solution, increased manufacturing capability, reduced manufacturing cost, and a decrease in the product design cycle. The economic implications and range of commercial applications are large and promising. Modular high performance computing-ready simulation capabilities are the future of modeling & simulation for American industry, and a key to maintaining national competitiveness. Key Words: Multiphysics, graphical user interface, validation, modeling & simulation Summary for Members of Congress (13th Congressional District of Illinois): Establishing an infrastructure for high performance computing-aided modeling & simulation is key to the future of U.S. industrial competitiveness in the world marketplace. This project results in the nations first free, commercial-quality software to provide advanced, extensible multiphysics simulation capabilities and infrastructure to industry users.