The Federal University of Santa Catarina in Sao Paulo, Brazil has purchased a new SGI Altix ICE system for use in their oil and gas exploration research program. The program is geared towards solving complex multiphase flow problems in petroleum and gas resource exploration.
The SINMEC lab continues to develop software for simulating oil flow in reservoirs in addition to exploring ways to solve multiphase flow problems, which remains one of the unsolved problems of fluid mechanics. Oil, gas and water, for example, are called “phases” and a mix of two or more phases, or phases not chemically related, are referred to as “mulitphase” flows. Multiphase flows – where each constituent part, or “phase” has different volumes, rates of dispersion and other properties – are found in many areas of science and engineering from oil and gas recovery through environmental modeling and many engineering processes.
The machine consists of a single 512 core Altix ICE. Judging by the specs, its probably a single rack.
Oil, gas and water are huge problems because of the bubbles and the interface between phases, and they require a lot of computational power to solve them” said Professor Clovis Maliska, Ph.D., and head of SINMEC. “We selected the SGI Altix ICE because we are working on developing new models to solve those fluid flow problems faster. Computations and simulations we used to do in two weeks, we now expect will take one or two days because of the power of the SGI system. This work will benefit not only Petrobras; everyone who uses simulation for complex multiphase flows will be impacted by our expanded software development”
For more info on the research and the system, read the full article here.