The High Performance Computing Research Group (HPC) aims to promote the links between high performance computer users, developers and researchers across the University, throughout the UK and internationally. It brings together academic and support staff with specialisms across a number of areas in the University, including computing, engineering, chemical and biological sciences. By building on their expertise and resources, the Group aims to take the technical burden off researchers, allowing them to carry on with their own research without having to worry about “computing power”.
With an overall aim to encourage and develop High Performance Computing expertise within the departments across the University, the Group cultivates mutually supportive environments for research active staff involved in HPC by encouraging collaboration and increasing the impact of HPC both within the University and further afield.
Members of the Group work to facilitate exchange of ideas and to disseminate cutting edge HPC knowledge via research seminars and conferences. They also provide an external reference point for communications with the wider community on HPC matters.
In line with the University’s goal of becoming a leading research institution, the Group aims to be at the cutting edge of new technology and to be a pioneer in emerging trends like Cloud computing.
The group aims are:
To encourage and develop HPC expertise within the departments across the University.
To increase the impact of HPC by fostering mutually supportive environments for research active staff involved in HPC and by encouraging collaboration, both within the University and further afield.
To facilitate exchange of ideas and to disseminate cutting edge HPC knowledge via research seminars and conferences.
To provide an external reference point for communications with the wider community on HPC matters.
The establishment of the HPC research group has enabled research to be carried out across multiple schools within the University. Read more about our impact here.
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Environment
Find out how bringing research computing facilities together has has a positive impact on our research.
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Projects
Read more about the numerous research projects in the area of high performance and high throughout computing.
If you would like to know more about our areas of expertise or wish to discuss research opportunities with the High Performance Computing Research Group then please contact our Research Administration team:
Group Leader: Dr Violeta Holmes
Research Office Computing and Engineering University of Huddersfield Queensgate Huddersfield HD1 3DH
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.
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