Reactor simulation takes the heat

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It’s possible to run a program using a million processor hours in just a few days or weeks, rather than more than a century, because parallel computing parcels out the job to thousands or tens of thousands of processors in one high-performance computer.

Warming up

As a warm-up, Fischer’s group used 1,000 processors to simulate seven pins.  The calculations used fewer processors and less time because the simulation involved fewer grid points and a modest level of turbulent coolant flow.

“You always start with the cheap calculations and work your way up,” Fischer says.  The less demanding simulations will be a baseline, giving a head start to more detailed and turbulent simulations.

The researchers plan to use 40,000 processors to simulate 19 pins by the end of summer 2007.  Next year, they’ll use Argonne’s Blue Gene/L computer, with 140,000 processors, giving them even more capacity.

“One pin today, 100 pins next year,” Fischer says.  Ultimately, the simulation could model thermal transfer among 217 or 271 pins, depending on the configuration.  That’s comparable to the state of the art in experimental data, Fischer says.

“We never will study in detail all the pins in a reactor,” given that there are thousands of pins housed in hundreds of containers, Fischer says.  Nonetheless, results indicate the group’s algorithms are sufficient to accurately characterize heat transfer with 10 million grid points per pin.

That’s why I’m fairly confident we’re going to be able to deliver for them accurate … flow predictions – as good as they can get from the experiments,” Fischer adds.  “I don’t think we’re going to get that out of this INCITE proposal, but as this program progresses we will.”

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