High Performance Computing Research Group

Impact

In addition to research carried out on high performance computing itself, the establishment of the group has resulted in a wide range of HPC enabled research to be carried out across multiple schools within the University.  Indeed, the HPCRG has made a significant impact on research activity within the University with HPC-enabled research carried out by many of its users contributing to multiple unit of assessment (UoA) submissions in the forthcoming Research Excellence Framework (REF) exercise.

HPC enabled research has made major contributions in many areas.  For example, on-going projects in the Computational Chemistry Research Group include modelling of the photophysics of new materials for electronic display and solar cell applications, novel lithium ion battery materials, new superconducting materials, probing the properties of next generation, safe, clean nuclear fuels based on thorium and the modelling of biomineralisation processes.  Work carried out in Huddersfield on the simulation of the growth of bacterial magnetic nanoparticles has recently been reported by several scientific news outlets (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121015085419.htm, http://www.nanotech-now.com/news.cgi?story_id=46164, http://phys.org/news/2012-10-aims-magnetosomes-nature-strangest-secrets.html)  

A wide range of research within the International Institute of Accelerator Applications have also greatly benefited from HPCRG facilities with projects on neutron imaging for security applications and the simulation of particle accelerators and particle physics processes in accelerator beam targets.

In engineering, HPC is used to help design vehicles to reduce fuel consumption; conduct thermal displacement analysis and machine deformations due to thermal stress

In informatics, malware analysis requires both the use of advanced analysis code (e.g. to mathematically model complex code behaviours or to crack cryptographically secure communications) and instrumented environments within which malware may be safely and securely ran whilst behavioural data is collected for offline analysis. The HPC cloud at theUniversityofHuddersfieldhas provided a secure and scalable instrumentation environment for malware code experimentation, whilst theUniversityofHuddersfield QGGcampus grid has provided the raw distributed computing power needed for code analysis requirements.

To highlight the impact Huddersfieldhas made in these areas, the University hosted the recent Computational Collaborative Programme 5 (Condensed Matter) Annual General Meeting (http://www.hud.ac.uk/staff/campuslife/staff-news-archive/firstappearanceforccp5inhuddersfield.php).  

Environment

The main ethos behind the HPC-RG revolves around the bringing together of established HPC users from various disciplines within the University reaching out to bring HPC resources to those who could benefit to create a multi-disciplinary and mutually supportive research community. 

The HPCRG brings what were once disparate research computing facilities under one roof thereby providing a more efficient and inclusive framework for researchers to undertake HPC related or enabled research.  This allows established computational researchers to work more effectively but also provides an entry point to HPC resources for researchers who work would benefit from HPC but are unfamiliar with it.  For this purpose the technical support side of the HPCRG provides training for new users and has seen the numbers of active HPC users across the University rise from under ten when the group was formed, to over a hundred in 2012

• HPC infrastructure management, campus grid, networking and intelligent scheduling systems
• Use of GPUs in accelerating HPC applications
• Semantic Web applications in HPC
• Artificial intelligence, Intelligent Agents
• Cloud computing

The HPCRG also facilitates HPC-enabled research across a variety of scientific disciplines with projects that include for example

• Quantum mechanical molecular modelling of materials for solar cell and electronic display applications
• Novel solid state materials for batteries and superconductors
• Modelling of biomineralisation processes
• Simulation of particle accelerators 

Research Excellence

Our vibrant and rapidly growing research community is a major force in the areas of technical innovation and development. HPCRG members are contributing to multiple units of assessment (UoA) submissions in the forthcoming Research Excellence Framework (REF) exercise in schools of Computing and Engineering and Applied Sciences

In September 2012 new super computer – valued at £100,000 – was added to the HPC resources. This AMD Sun cluster – Sol, is the latest in a series of key developments that have gathered paced since the HPCRG was formed in 2010