Related Work

Consortium for Open Multiphysics

Related Work

---

There have been a number of interfaces developed relatively recently that target large-scale scientific software development and integration. Among them are LIME and a multitude of Trilinos packages which offer rich interfaces representing the state-of-the-art in multiphysics coupling. It is important that the consortium-led infrastructure effort result in constructs that allow for relatively easy integration of existing applications in these fully-featured advanced frameworks, as well as other custom designed integrated systems.

While several established and advanced interfaces do address many of the varied requirements of multiphysics infrastructure for HPC applications, there remains a need for interface specification and standardization of methods for general parallel software integration. These standard interfaces will lower capability development costs, encourage a high level of software reuse, and help lower the entry barriers to HPC multiphysics simulation for industry and the research community at large.

---

Multiphysics Systems and Software

• BoxLib - This framework serves as a basis for writing a parallel, block-structured AMR application. BoxLib is capable of hybrid parallelism utilizing MPI and OpenMP. (Bell et al., 2012)
• Cactus - Another powerful parallel simulation infrastructure is found in Cactus, originally developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). In this framework, all parallelism is provided by the infrastructure itself, requiring infrastructure adoption in the development effort. (Allen et al., 2001)
• Chombo - Chombo consists of a set of library of tools for solving PDEs by finite difference methods. It allows for parallelization through domain decomposition, and the open-source framework provided by Chombo enables users to integrate external solvers. (Collella et al., 2000);
• Common Component Architecture – The CCA allows one to wrap existing software constructs in order to create software components that present a standard interface to the underlying infrastructure and other components. The level of integration offered by the CCA is fine grained, and places emphasis on runtime discovery of available services, similar to the SOA approach. (Allan et al., 2002)
• Escript/Finley - Using the Finley finite-element method solver library, Escript provides modelers with an environment for easily developing and running complex or coupled models. It works on nonlinear, time-dependent PDEs and can be used with MPI, OpenMP, or in hybrid mode. (Gross et al., 2007)
• Rocstar Multiphysics Framework – This multiphysics simulation application and its underlying infrastructure are the result of the University of Illinois DOE ASCI Center, and continued development by Illinois Rocstar. It was designed for simulation of the internal ballistics of solid propellant rocket motors, but is a general multiphysics capability for multiple systems interacting across a moving, reactive interface. This is the infrastructure upon which the software integration toolkit is based. A more detailed description of the Rocstar infrastructure can be found in (Dick et al., 2006).
• LIME - A lightweight and small package, LIME is used for coupling separate computer codes in order to solve a multiphysics problem. It provides the interface between codes, but to remain lightweight it requires either creation of new code or changing of existing code. (Pawlowski et al., 2011)
• MCT - The Argonne developed Model Coupling Toolkit implements technologies specific to couple together serial and MPI-parallel simulation codes.
• MOAB - MOAB helps interface between two physics codes by transferring data from the mesh of one code to a potentially different mesh type of another code. (Tautges et al., 2004)
• MOOSE - Tightly coupling multiphysics applications, MOOSE greatly assists modelers by allowing them to insert their governing mathematical equation into its framework. (Gaston et al., 2009)
• OpenFSI - Currently under development, OpenFSI is an open source fluid-structure interaction infrastructure. It is built over the Service Component Architecture (SCA), which is a relatively new specification for constructing applications using a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA). There exists no inherent parallelism in OpenFSI or support for external parallelism. This interface is used by MSC Nastran to provide coupling capabilities to outside codes.
• OpenPALM - Stand alone codes can be coupled using OpenPALM, which also allows for dynamic launching of coupled components and parallel grid to grid mapping and interpolation. (Buis et al., 2006)
• PETSc - The library of data structures and routines that comprises PETSc aids modelers in solving partial differential equations in a parallel environment. (Balay et al., 2012)
• SUNDIALS - Able to be used by a wide variety of software, SUNDIALS consists of a suite of computational codes used for solving nonlinear algebraic systems, initial value problems, and ordinary differential equations among other types of problems. (Woodward, et al., 2012)
• Trilinos – Also developed by Sandia National Laboratories, Trilinos is a comprehensive framework dedicated to facilitating large-scale multiphysics applications and simulations. It is the current state-of-the-art in advanced multiphysics coupling, offering many constructs designed to allow components to interoperate and cooperate in the HPC environment. The planned consortium effort is to be complementary to Trilinos, providing the constructs needed to take advantage of the capabilities Trilinos offers, while offering additional services for the applications that must stand alone (e.g., commercial/closed packages from ISVs).(Heroux 2005)
• Uintah - Uintah consists of some underlying standard fluid-flow and material point methods. It can perform multiphysics problems and incorporate multiple simulation components. (Parker, 2006)
• WaLBerla - A massively parallel framework, WaLBerla utilizes a lattice-Botzmann method to simulate multiphase flow and can be coupled to a rigid body dynamics solver. (Fiechtinger et al., 2011)

---

Navigation Links

Licensing
Mission
Members
Technical
Implementation
Example Problems
Related Work
Reading and References
Consortium Funding