Three New SimLabs in JSC

In the first half of 2011, three new Simulation Laboratories were established at JSC: Climate Science, Highly Scalable Fluid and Solid Engineering, and Ab Initio Methods in Chemistry and Physics, adding to the established JSC portfolio of Biology, Molecular Systems and Plasma Physics.

The new SimLab Climate Science has strong ties to its counterpart Climate and Environment, housed at the KIT Steinbuch Center for Computing, Karlsruhe, and is committed to improving popular atmospheric chemistry and climate prediction models. The engineering and ab initio Labs have been set up by the HPC branch of the Jülich Aachen Research Alliance (JARA-HPC), and will focus on high-profile supercomputing applications developed by groups at Jülich and RWTH Aachen University.

Each of these Simulation Labs offers advanced user support for supercomputing projects and carries out research on new algorithms and methods relevant to its respective community. Last autumn, JSC issued its first call for high-level support from the Simulation Labs, covering a wide range of tasks, including code performance analysis, scaling and restructuring to exploit the JUROPA and JUGENE systems. In this current pilot phase, work packages range from 1-2 person-months of JSC staff resources and are supplemented by an equivalent amount of manpower from the project partners. A workshop is planned for autumn this year to present the results of this activity prior to the next support call.

(Contact: Dr. Paul Gibbon)

from JSC News No. 194, April 2011