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Exascale’s New Frontier: WDMApp

PI: Amitava Bhattacharjee Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory In 2016, the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’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 meant rethinking, reinventing, and optimizing dozens of scientific…
Coury Turczyn
August 8, 2023
Visualization of an aerosolized SARS-CoV-2 particle with various components inside and outside the particle.Science

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 McDowell
December 30, 2021
Science

Closing In on Fusion

The same process that fuels stars could one day be used to generate massive amounts of power here on Earth. Nuclear fusion—in which atomic nuclei fuse to form heavier nuclei and release energy in the process—promises to be a long-term, sustainable, and safe form of energy. But scientists are still trying to fine-tune the process of…
Rachel McDowell
December 13, 2021
Science

Weighing up Plasma Particles

The sun’s energy is the result of a continuous series of nuclear fusion reactions in which ionized hydrogen in the form of plasma collides at high speeds and releases helium and energetic neutrons—producing enormous bursts of energy in the process. For years, researchers have sought a way to harness this…
Will Wells
July 28, 2020
Science

Speeding Toward the Future of Fusion

In 1934, physicist Ernest Rutherford and his colleagues produced the first fusion reaction—the fusing of light nuclei to release energy—in a laboratory by converting deuterium, a heavy hydrogen isotope, to helium. Since then, scientists have built increasingly efficient fusion energy devices with a goal to achieve net fusion energy, or…
Katie Elyce Jones
January 2, 2020
Science

Science at Exascale: The Future of Fusion Modeling

Frontier is an exascale computer planned for delivery at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility in 2021. The system will support a wide range of scientific applications for advanced modeling and simulation, as well as high-performance data analytics and artificial intelligence. In the “Science at Exascale” Q&A series, researchers working…
Rachel McDowell
May 7, 2019
Science

Decades-Long Physics Mystery Elucidated with Titan

The same fusion reactions that power the sun also occur inside a tokamak, a device that uses magnetic fields to confine and control plasmas of 100-plus million degrees. Under extreme temperatures and pressure, hydrogen atoms can fuse together, creating new helium atoms and simultaneously releasing energy. Fusion could be a…
Rachel McDowell
October 17, 2017
Science

How Hot Is Too Hot in Fusion?

Fusion, the energy that powers the stars, might one day provide abundant energy here on Earth. In a nuclear fusion reactor, the hot, charged gas known as plasma reaches out of this world temperatures at 150 million degrees Celsius, or 10 times hotter than the center of the sun. The…
Katie Elyce Jones
June 27, 2017
People

OLCF User Support Specialist Receives YWCA Award Nomination

Each fall the YWCA in Knoxville, Tennessee, holds its annual Tribute to Women gala to recognize women in the community who have demonstrated the values of the organization: encouraging diversity, advocating for racial justice, and empowering women. This year Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) User Support Specialist Suzanne Parete-Koon was chosen as a…
Rachel McDowell
October 18, 2016