Thousandth ARSC User Queues Up
Fairbanks, Alaska - Vigor Yang of Pennsylvania State University's Mechanical Engineering department is the 1,000th researcher to be granted access to the resources of the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center. Yang, a Penn State professor, is developing large-scale numerical simulations of combustion dynamics in gas turbine engines.
"We will be using the ARSC facility to conduct large-scale calculations of chemically reacting flows in rocket motors and ramjet combustors under both steady and oscillatory conditions," Yang said. "The main purpose is to achieve detailed understanding of the interactions between acoustic waves and flame dynamics. Results will help the development of advanced air-breathing and rocket propulsion systems."
Although 1,000 user accounts have been assigned since ARSC began operations in 1993, at present there are about 230 active users. ARSC's first and 100th users are still among the list of current researchers using the center's supercomputers.
Amanda Lynch, then a researcher at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, logged on to the CRAY Y-MP Denali on Jan. 6, 1993, becoming the first ARSC user. Lynch was working on incorporating Arctic climate features into global climate models, a line of research she continues today at the University of Colorado.
Doug Goering, Associate Professor in the UAF Mechanical Engineering department and ARSC's 100th user, logged on in June of 1993 to study the simulated flow of fluid inside coiled pipe. Today he is involved in two ARSC projects-one regarding the thermal performance of open-graded roadway embankments, and another to establish a prototype of a distributed development and visualization environment that can be applied to next generation automotive technologies and systems.
Yang, Lynch and Goering are representative of local and remote ARSC users. As such they are members of a group which includes users as far away as Miami, Florida, and users from groups as diverse as the Naval Postgraduate School, the National Weather Service and the U.S. Air Force. However, the research aims of most ARSC users are similar: science and engineering with an emphasis on high latitudes and the Arctic.