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Titan

Frontier data center imageScience

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 McDowell
March 28, 2022
People

Pioneering Frontier: Meeting Industry at Scale

The “Pioneering Frontier” series features stories profiling the many talented ORNL employees behind the construction and operation of the OLCF’s incoming exascale supercomputer, Frontier. The HPE Cray system is scheduled for delivery in 2021, with full user operations in 2022. When the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility’s (OLCF’s) next supercomputer,…
Rachel McDowell
September 30, 2021
Science

Titan Study Takes Jet Turbine Design to New Heights

Simulations performed on Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s (ORNL’s) Titan supercomputer could clear the runway for more efficient jet-engine turbines and help set a new benchmark for turbine design. The study by an international team of scientists modeled air flow over a 3D turbine blade using the computational power of Titan,…
Matt Lakin
July 22, 2021
People

Arthur “Buddy” Bland, World-Leading Supercomputing Project Director, Retires after 40 Years Dedicated to HPC

“No risk, no reward.” It’s a familiar sentiment in business and entrepreneurial ventures. Risk drives innovation and propels organizations to new heights. It’s certainly familiar to Arthur “Buddy” Bland, former project director at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) who retired this month after 40 years of faithful service…
Rachel McDowell
February 26, 2021
Science

A New Method for Unraveling Complex Gene Interactions

The first step for biologists who want to develop new, more efficient biofuels is to understand the genetic underpinnings of plants that can be digested by microbes into chemical compounds. One species in particular, the black cottonwood tree, or Populus trichocarpa (poplar tree), has long been a focus of scientists…
Will Wells
May 18, 2020
Science

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 McDowell
March 27, 2020
Science

Machine Learning for Better Drug Design

When Harel Weinstein and his team at the Joan & Sanford I. Weill Medical College (Weill Cornell Medicine) of Cornell University set out to learn the molecular mechanisms of drugs, they weren’t expecting to train computers to analyze some of the most complex data in pharmacology. In fact, they really…
Rachel McDowell
February 21, 2020
Science

Closely Spaced Hydrogen Atoms Could Facilitate Superconductivity in Ambient Condition

By: Paul Boisvert, 502-229-4466, [email protected] An international team of researchers has discovered the hydrogen atoms in a metal hydride material are much more tightly spaced than had been predicted for decades—a feature that could possibly facilitate superconductivity at or near room temperature and pressure. Such a superconducting material, carrying electricity…
OLCF Staff Writer
February 3, 2020
Eric LentzPeopleScience

The Last User of Titan

Titan, the groundbreaking Cray XK7 supercomputer operated by the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), was officially decommissioned on August 1. The petascale machine ran countless simulations over its 7 years of service, and its sheer computational power…
Will Wells
January 2, 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

Modeling Every Building in America Starts with Chattanooga

Buildings use 40 percent of America’s primary energy and 75 percent of its electricity, which can jump to 80 percent when a majority of the population is at home using heating or cooling systems and the seasons reach their extremes. The US Department of Energy’s (DOE)’s Building Technologies Office (BTO),…
Rachel McDowell
November 13, 2019
short-range order parameters of a high-entropy alloy calculated in reciprocal space at different temperaturesScience

In the Mix

by Sara Shoemaker Mixing metals into alloys is an age-old practice. The tedious trial and error of heating, cooling, testing, and remixing was once the only method to fine-tune the best blend of metals for ideal strength and durability. In recent times, computational scientists have developed a faster, more precise…
OLCF Staff Writer
November 6, 2019
configurational ensemble (a collection of 3D structures) of an intrinsically disordered proteinScience

Titan Supercomputer and Spallation Neutron Source Unite to Probe the Inner Workings of c-Src kinase

Proteins are the workhorses of our body’s cells, performing vital functions we can’t live without—everything from helping form antibodies to transporting nutrients to providing structure for the cells themselves. The individual role of each protein can be determined by studying its unique three-dimensional structure. However, one particular class of protein…
Coury Turczyn
October 3, 2019
Image Credit: iStockScience

From Simulation to Automation in a Data-Rich World

In a farewell nod to Titan, scheduled to be decommissioned in August 2019, we present a short series of features highlighting some of Titan’s impactful contributions to scientific research. Long before the first computers were invented, intelligent robots appeared in myths, stories, and other works of fiction. In recent years,…
Rachel McDowell
August 29, 2019
Science

Igniting a New Class of Combustion Research

In a farewell nod to Titan, scheduled to be decommissioned in August 2019, we present a short series of features highlighting some of Titan’s impactful contributions to scientific research. The internal combustion engine has been around since the 19th century and remains the most affordable, reliable way to power the…
Katie Elyce Jones
August 1, 2019