Scientific Computing Research Environments for the Mathematical Sciences

NSF proposal DMS-0215392 PIs: Xu, Belmonte, Du, Li and Zikatanov ABSTRACT The Department of Mathematics at the Pennsylvania State University will purchase a 64-node parallel PC cluster to be dedicated to the support of research and teaching in the mathematical sciences. In particular, the PC cluster will be used to support the research projects of faculty members in the areas of the numerical solution of partial differential equations in fluid dynamics and material sciences, and computational finance and in the studies of general numerical techniques such as parallel multigrid algorithms and quasi-Monte Carlo methods. In particular, the projects include studies of important issues concerning modeling and simulations of non-Newtonian flows, liquid crystals, quantized vortices, water waves and fuel cells. Much of the research efforts rely critically on the establishment of the proposed PC cluster. The proposal involves an integrated collaboration between the numerical work to be performed in the PC cluster and the experimental work to be performed in the W. G. Pritchard Laboratories of the Department of Mathematics. The new equipment will make it possible to numerically simulate the various complex physical phenomena observed in the fluid lab and will greatly enhance collaborations among researchers in computational and applied mathematics at Penn State. The PC cluster will also be the basis for the creation of a new computational laboratory, which together with the Pritchard fluid lab, will provide a unique environment for multidisciplinary research as well as for (both undergraduate and graduate) student training.