To develop risk maps for floods caused by intense periods of rain, to check the resistance of a coastal infrastructure against the impact of sea waves, to assess the design of a turbine… Fluid simulation and its numerical modeling have a wide and relevant field of practical application, currently being a fundamental tool for the management, for example, of resources and the prevention of water-related risks. To learn about the latest computational advances in this field, this Wednesday and Thursday the Ourense campus hosted the HPC for Geophysical Fluid Dynamics 2019 conference.
The event, organized by the Environmental Physics Laboratory Group (Ephyslab) of the Marine Research Center of the University of Vigo, brought together around fifty specialists who use HPC (high performance computing) in excellent research, students from different disciplines and specialists from interested companies to talk about the latest advances in the application of these techniques in the development of numerical models for fluid simulation. The event, coordinated by Ephyslab researchers José Manuel Domínguez and Orlando García and linked to the specialization project of the Ourense campus as the Water Campus, had a scientific committee in which researchers from the universities of Cantabria, A Coruña, Manchester (United Kingdom), Gent (Belgium) and the Instituto Superior Técnico de Portugal participated. In addition to the Faculty of Sciences and the School of Aeronautical and Space Engineering of the Ourense campus, the Marine Research Center, Cesga and the Spanish Supercomputing Network collaborated. The activity was co-financed by the FEDER/FSE Galicia 2014-2020 Operational Program.
Dualsphysics, Iber and Ihfoam
The attendees of HPC for Geophysical Fluid Dynamics 2019 had the opportunity to listen to the interventions of specialists in numerical modeling and HPC and mainly to the developers of reference models in this field. Specifically, during the conference, the latest advances in the numerical models Dualsphysics, Iber and Ihfoam were presented, with Ephyslab working on the development of the first two. Dualsphysics, explained the coordinators of the conference, is a 3D fluid simulation model that uses particles and is used in simulations in which water violently impacts three-dimensional structures, such as coastal structures. This model, they indicated, “allows the study of more complex phenomena and on a smaller scale, requiring much more calculation capacity than, for example, Iber”. Emphasizing the “very good reception” of this model, among the examples of real use that have been made of it, they pointed out how “in Belgium it was used to design a marine protection system in the coastal area, to test different concrete blocks to see which one resisted the waves of the sea better”.
Iber, for its part, explained the Ephyslab researchers, is a model used for the simulation of floods in two dimensions, to assess the scope and impact of transport phenomena in floods in areas such as river basins or estuaries. “It is a model that is used to simulate large areas of land, for example flooding in a city”, indicated the coordinators of the event. In the development of this model, they pointed out, Ephyslab worked mainly with the University of A Coruña and the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, with collaborators in different state and foreign universities. Available since 2010, they commented, “the version that we developed here of Iber, which is the accelerated version for high performance, has been available since the beginning of this year and for example we use it to have an early warning system for floods”.
These three models, the event coordinators commented, are “international benchmarks” in their field, being considered “one of the most cutting-edge implementations that exist right now in terms of performance and functionalities”. During the day, the developers of these models themselves, emphasized from the organization, presented the latest improvements made to them and their performance data. The three benchmarks handled, they indicated, “are not exclusive, since each one has its field of application and often you even have to combine them to do the simulation you want”.
SOURCE: DUVI
