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Frontier Simulations Could Help Build a Better Diamond
The world’s fastest supercomputer helped researchers simulate synthesizing a material harder and tougher than diamond — or any other substance on Earth. The study used Frontier, the HPE Cray EX supercomputing system at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, to predict the likeliest strategy to synthesize such a…
Matt LakinJuly 26, 20247 min
Summit Helps Forge Stronger Flights
Titanium alloys serve as cornerstone materials for the aerospace industry — stronger and lighter than steel, resistant to rust and corrosion and resilient past the melting points of most other metals. Companies such as RTX, formerly Raytheon Technologies, rely on these sturdy alloys to build such vital machinery as jet-engine turbine…
Matt LakinApril 30, 20248 min
Frontier Search for Lightweight, Flexible Alloys Wins Gordon Bell Prize
A team of eight scientists won the Association for Computing Machinery’s 2023 Gordon Bell Prize for their study that used the world’s first exascale supercomputer to run one of the largest simulations of an alloy ever and achieve near-quantum accuracy. The ACM Gordon Bell Prize recognizes outstanding achievement in high-performance…
Matt LakinNovember 16, 20233 min
Big Flex for Big Science
Researchers used the world’s first exascale supercomputer to run one of the largest simulations of an alloy ever and achieve near-quantum accuracy. The study led by the University of Michigan’s Vikram Gavini employed Frontier, the 1.14-exaflop HPE Cray EX supercomputer at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, to…
Matt LakinNovember 14, 20235 min
Exascale’s New Frontier: EXAALT
PI: Danny Perez, Los Alamos National Laboratory In 2016, the Department of Energy’s Exascale Computing Project (ECP) set out to develop advanced software for the arrival of exascale-class supercomputers capable of a quintillion (1018) or more calculations per second. That leap meant rethinking, reinventing and optimizing dozens of scientific applications…
Coury TurczynNovember 10, 20235 min
Advancing Nanoscience Through Largescale MD Simulations
Over the past decade, teams of engineers, chemists and biologists have analyzed the physical and chemical properties of cicada wings, hoping to unlock the secret of their ability to kill microbes on contact. If this function of nature can be replicated by science, it may lead to products with inherently…
Coury TurczynJuly 14, 20239 min
Layered Perovskite Power
Using the Summit supercomputer at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have confirmed and explained the results of an experiment to synthesize a new crystalline material that may hold promising applications. Composed of alternating atomic layers of…
Coury TurczynMay 12, 20226 min
Forging Ahead with Frontier: Ready to Crush Science
Computational users at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) are running scientific codes on Frontier’s architecture in the form of a powerful test system at the OLCF called Crusher. Frontier, an HPE Cray EX supercomputer capable of 1018 calculations per second—or 10 with 18 zeroes—was installed in late 2021 and is…
Rachel McDowellMarch 28, 20228 min
Artificially Altered Material Could Accelerate Neuromorphic Device Development
Neuromorphic devices — which emulate the decision-making processes of the human brain — show great promise for solving pressing scientific problems, but building physical systems to realize this potential presents researchers with a significant challenge. An international team has gained additional insights into a material compound called vanadium oxide, or…
Elizabeth RosenthalJanuary 25, 20228 min
2021 at the OLCF: Year in Review
In 2021, supercomputing at the US Department of Energy's (DOE's) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) enabled new scientific breakthroughs amid the global pandemic. From modeling small particles called quarks to simulating turbulence in fusion reactors, the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility's (OLCF's) flagship supercomputer, Summit, continued to provide unprecedented opportunities…
Rachel McDowellDecember 30, 202113 min
Shape-Based Model Sheds Light on Simplified Protein Binding
Can something as simple as shape fully determine whether or not proteins will bind together? Scientists are commissioning supercomputers to find out. A team led by Sharon Glotzer, distinguished professor and department chair of chemical engineering at the University of Michigan (UM), used the 200-petaflop Summit supercomputer at the US…
Rachel McDowellAugust 9, 20217 min
Computer Simulations Shed Light on Nanomaterial Structures
2D nanomaterials, with a thickness of a single layer of atoms, have unique electrical and optical properties that make them good candidates for use in electronics and optical sensors. An increasing range of these ultrathin materials can now be synthesized, and the ways in which they emit and absorb light…
Rachel McDowellApril 22, 20216 min
Summit Helps Predict Molecular Breakups
Designing materials with certain properties is the first step to making computer chips that can store more information, superconductors that could help to solve the world’s energy problems, and drugs that work more efficiently in the human body. The transition metals in the periodic table of elements are crucial to…
Rachel McDowellJune 24, 20207 min
ORNL Scientists Tap into AI to Put a New Spin on Neutron Experiments
Scientists seek to use quantum materials—those that have correlated order at the subatomic level—for electronic devices, quantum computers, and superconductors. Quantum materials owe many of their properties to the physics that is occurring on the smallest scales, physics that is fully quantum mechanical. Some materials, such as complex magnetic materials,…
Rachel McDowellMarch 27, 20207 min
Metal Alloys for Industrial Applications Benefit from Supercomputer Modeling
Using machine learning and simulations, scientists at the US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have confirmed a relationship between two mechanisms used to explain the ductility properties of magnesium alloys, according to a study published in Materials & Design. For the study, scientists analyzed data from previous…
Andrea SchneibelJanuary 17, 20204 min