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| Katherine L. Tucker |
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| Katherine L. Tucker |
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I am a grad student in Mechanical Engineering and I am conducting research on microfluidic mixers. I use the Cluster01 to create and run fluid flow models on COMSOL Multiphysics. The COMSOL program solves the Navier Stokes equations for transient fluid flow and the convection diffusion equation. For the models that I create to be accurate, though, they require more elements and time steps than my computer, or the computers in the EPDC, can handle. This is where the cluster comes in very handy. I usually have the Cluster run any model that is more complicated than a 2D model with 30,000 elements. The most complicated model I have had the cluster solve consisted of 90,000 elements. This model took 30 hours for the Cluster to solve, which is something that no other computer resource I have access to could do. Another nice benefit of the Cluster is being able to use it from home. I live in Providence, RI and it takes me two hours to get to Tufts by train. So, I only come in when I have to. Having remote access to the Cluster makes this possible. Without the Cluster, or the very helpful people who provide excellent technical support, I would never have been able to do the research I needed to to finish my Master's Thesis.Erin Munro
I'm studying Computational Neuroscience in the Math department. My research consists of doing MANY simulations. That being said, I would not be able to do this research without the cluster! I simulate networks of thousands of neurons interacting. While there are some simulations that take a few minutes, the majority of them take 45 minutes to an 1.5 hours on one node. The last time I calculated, I'd like to run over a month's worth of these simulations. On top of this, I've run several very important simulations that take 1.5 days on 16 nodes. I had to run these simulations in order to try to reproduce results from Roger Traub's research. My current project is to try to explain these results. We tried to find a simpler way to explain them without reproducing the full model, but we found that we couldn't do it. With the cluster, I have been able to reproduce the results to the best of my ability. Furthermore, I've been able to dissect the model, and run many more simulations to get a much better understanding of what is going on in his results. I feel like I'm coming close to fully explaining the results, and have just presented a talk at BU explaining my ideas. None of this would have been possible without the cluster.
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