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Revision 152, 11.4 kB (checked in by kstemen, 7 years ago)

Scaling, categorization, and selecting materials have been fixed since Jorge's submission. All code should use db_get_plot_single_values now, but the old function is still around.
  • Property svn:keywords set to Author Date Id Revision
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1<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
2<!--  <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd"> -->
3<html>
4<head>
5   <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
6   <meta name="Author" content="Adam C. Powell, IV">
7   <meta name="Description" content="Research Group Home Page">
8   <meta name="Keywords" content="Materials Engineering, Fluid Dynamics, Transport Phenomena, Boundary Element, Finite Element, Metallurgy">
9   <title>Powell Research Group</title>
10<link rel="stylesheet" title="Default" href="style.css" type="text/css" media="screen">
11</head>
12<body>
13<h1><em>Powell Research Group</em></h1>
14
15<hr>
16<div id="links">
17<ul>
18<li><a href="#members">Group Members</a>
19<li><a href="#projects">Current Projects</a>
20<li><a href="#software">Numerical Tools</a>
21<li><a href="#computers">Computational Resources</a>
22<li><a href="#mirrors">Software mirrors on this server</a>
23</ul>
24</div>
25<hr><div><a name="members" ></a></div>
26<div id="main">
27<div class="content">
28This page describes several aspects of our group.
29<br>
30We also have a <a href="research/seminar2002.html">group seminar</a> meeting
31on Thursday afternoons during Fall, 2002.
32</div>
33
34<h3>Group Members</h3>
35
36<ul>
37<li><a href="/~powell/">Adam Powell</a>, Group Leader
38<li><a href="http://web.mit.edu/bozhou/www/">Bo Zhou</a>, Research Assistant
39<li>Yi-Cheung Lok, Research Assistant
40<li>Jorge Vieyra, Research Assistant
41<li>Wanida Pongsaksawad, Research Assistant
42<li>Daphne Lin, <a href="http://web.mit.edu/urop/">UROP</a>
43<li><a href="http://web.mit.edu/nimi/www/">Ojonimi Ocholi</a>,
44  <a href="http://web.mit.edu/urop/">UROP</a>
45<li>Eric Hansen, <a href="http://web.mit.edu/urop/">UROP</a>
46<li>Muyinatu Lediju, <a href="http://web.mit.edu/urop/">UROP</a>
47<li>Kurt Keville, <a href="#computers">Beowulf Cluster</a> Specialist
48<li>Rob Tomkins, <a href="#computers">Beowulf Cluster</a> Specialist
49</ul>
50
51<h3>Group Alumni</h3>
52
53<ul>
54<li><a href="/~dussault/">David Dussault</a> (Mech.E. SM 2002), researcher at
55  <a href="http://www.aerodyne.com/">Aerodyne Research, Inc.</a>
56</ul>
57
58<hr><div><a name="projects"></a></div>
59<h3>Current Projects</h3>
60
61<dl>
62
63<dt><span class="title" >Cathode design in electrolysis with liquid electrolyte and product</span>
64  <dd><p>Novel primary metal reduction processes, such as
65    <a href="research/smeltref.html">electrolytic smelting and refining of
66    steel</a>, involve liquid electrolytes (typically molten salts) and
67    reaction products at the cathode.  In many diffusion-limited cases,
68    understanding the growth of liquid dendrites into a liquid electrolyte can
69    lead to cathode designs which improve the rate of reaction and process
70    efficiency.  Physical and mathematical modeling approaches to understanding
71    this are being investigated.  This modeling is closely coordinated with the
72    experimental work of Uday Pal at Boston University.
73    <em>David Dussault, Adam Powell</em>
74
75<dt><span class="title" >Microstructure formation in phase inversion casting of polymer membranes</span>
76
77  <dd><p>Phase inversion casting involves adding a coagulating agent, such as
78    water, to a dissolved polymer, so the polymer precipitates out in a
79    controlled way.  A variety of microstructures can be achieved using this
80    technique, and we are using mathematical modeling to understand how these
81    microstructures form and eventually produce novel microstructures.  These
82    membranes are used in a variety of filtration and ultrafiltration
83    applications, including "reverse osmosis", in which even salt ions can be
84    removed from water.  This modeling is closely coordinated with the
85    experimental work of
86    <a href="http://www-dmse.mit.edu/people/faculty/amayes/">Anne
87    Mayes'</a> research group.
88
89    <em>Bo Zhou, Adam Powell</em>
90
91<dt><span class="title" >Second-phase defects and mechanical properties of materials</span>
92
93  <dd><p>Matrix partitioning techniques in the Boundary Element Method due to
94    Frank Rizzo can be used to efficiently solve elastic deformation fields for
95    many different configurations of second-phase defects and cracks in
96    materials.  Advances in computation have made this possible not merely
97    for two or three interacting defects, but for spaces of dozens of
98    defects.&nbsp; This project will explore the interaction of such defects
99    and their effects on mechanical properties.<br>
100
101    <em>Yi-Cheung Lok, Adam Powell</em>
102
103<dt><span class="title" >Interface dynamics in a novel titanium reduction process</span>
104
105  <dd><p>A new electrolytic reduction process for making titanium is being
106    designed as a possible supplement or replacement for the Kroll process.
107    Details of process design and operation are still in progress, but
108    important features include outstanding energy efficiency and the ability to
109    make pure metal directly from impure TiO<sub>2</sub> with no chlorination.
110    This process is therefore expected to result in considerably lower cost and
111    environmental impact than the current Kroll process.<br>
112
113    <em>Wanida Pongsaksawad, Adam Powell</em>
114
115<dt><span class="title" >Microstructure evolution in semi-solid metals</span>
116
117  <dd><p>Using a new mixed-stress formulation to combine fluid-structure
118    interactions and phase-field modeling, this project's goal is to model the
119    microstructure evolution of semi-solid metals.  Physics involved include
120    transport of solid particles by a fluid and rotation of their local crystal
121    orientation, shape change of solids due to solidification and remelting
122    with anisotropic surface energy and growth kinetics, heat and mass
123    transfer.<br>
124
125    <em>Jorge Vieyra, Adam Powell</em>
126
127<dt><span class="title" >Centrifugal casting of high-strength glass rods</span>
128
129  <dd><p>Glass rods of high strength are cast in a rotating mold.<br>
130
131  <em>Eric Hansen, Adam Powell</em>
132
133<dt><span class="title" >Liquid free surface shapes in materials processing</span>
134
135  <dd><p>Liquid free surfaces play an important role in many materials processes,
136    particularly on small scales where surface tension effects dominate local
137    dynamics.  I have worked on capillary forces in solder droplets with the
138    <a href="http://www.ctcms.nist.gov/programs/solder/">NIST Solder
139    Interconnect Design Team</a>, and formation of polymer-encapsulated
140    microdroplets of aqueous solution with Jonathan Silver of NIH.  I continue
141    to work on optoelectronics applications of this technology in cooperation
142    with the MIT Microphotonics Center.<br>
143
144    <em>Yi-Cheung Lok, Muiynatu Lediju, Adam Powell</em>
145
146</dl>
147
148<hr><div><a name="software"></a></div>
149<h3>Numerical tools</h3>
150<div class="content">
151Our research group uses exclusively open-source tools for our research,
152including some developed internally.
153</div>
154<dl>
155
156<dt><span class="title" ><a href="/~powell/Julian.html">Julian Boundary/Finite Element
157  Software</a></span>
158
159  <dd><p>Julian is a new boundary element code in the early stages of development,
160    whose objects are also useful for finite element calculations.<br>
161
162    <em>Adam Powell, Yi-Cheung Lok</em>
163
164<dt><span class="title" ><a href="/~powell/illuminator.html">Illuminator Distributed Visualization
165  Library</a></span>
166
167  <dd><p>This library, developed in-house, is currently a viewer for PETSc 3-D
168    distributed array (DA) data structures (see below).  It allows close
169    coupling of parallel simulations using distributed data with parallel
170    visualization of the resulting data, enabling much richer interaction in
171    simulation.  Its full potential is not yet realized, but a working
172    prototype is available for download, including an example demonstrating
173    dynamics of a Cahn-Hilliard phase field system.<br>
174
175    <em>Adam Powell, Ojonimi Ocholi</em>
176
177<dt><span class="title" ><a href="http://www-fp.mcs.anl.gov/petsc/">PETSc</a>, the Portable
178  Extensible Toolkit for Scientific Computing</span>
179
180  <dd><p>PETSc is a very powerful general-purpose toolkit which includes
181    state-of-the-art parallel solvers for linear and nonlinear systems of
182    equations, and distributed data objects for finite difference and (under
183    development) finite element solution of partial differential equations.  It
184    has been developed and maintained by a group at Argonne National
185    Laboratories.
186
187<dt><span class="title" ><a href="http://www.susqu.edu/facstaff/b/brakke/evolver/evolver.html">Surface
188  Evolver</a></span>
189
190  <dd><p>Written by <a href="http://www.susqu.edu/facstaff/b/brakke/">Ken
191    Brakke</a> of Susquehanna University, this extremely flexible tool for
192    calculating minimal-energy surfaces is used by our group for the liquid
193    free surface modeling described above.
194
195</dl>
196
197<hr><div><a name="computers"></a>
198<a href="http://www.amd.com/"><img src="research/1pathlon.jpg"
199alt="Powered by AMD Athlon (TM)"  width=120 height=120 id="athlon"> </a>
200</div>
201<h3>Computational Resources</h3>
202
203<div class="content">
204In order to perform the complex simulations involved in the research projects
205above, we have several workstations with AMD AthlonMP, Intel Pentium III and
206DEC (now Compaq - HPaq?) Alpha CPUs, and two AMD Athlon-based Beowulf clusters.
207All of our machines run <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian GNU/Linux.</a>
208</div>
209<dl>
210
211<dt><span class="title" >The Morphology Engine</span>
212
213  <dd><p>This cluster of 46 1.3 GHz AMD Athlon<sup>TM</sup>-based computers is
214    used primarily for PETSc-based simulations and Illuminator visualizations
215    (see Numerical Tools above).  The Morphology Engine has an interesting flat
216    network topology with six 24-port 100 Mb/s switches connecting the 46
217    compute nodes to a dual-Celeron head node such that each node sees each
218    other across just one switch, inspired by the
219    <a href="http://aggregate.org/KLAT2/">KLAT2</a> Athlon cluster at the
220    University of Kentucky.
221
222<dt><span class="title" >The Structure Monster <em>(tentative name)</em></span>
223
224  <dd><p>Processors and resources for a cluster of 19 dual-1.53 GHz AMD
225    AthlonMP<sup>TM</sup> machines were generously donated by AMD to our group
226    for development and use of distributed computation and visualization
227    software (see above).  In our opinion (thoroughly unbiased of course),
228    clusters based on Athlon CPUs provide by far the best performance/cost for
229    performing scientific calculations.
230
231</dl>
232
233<div align="center"><img src="research/linuxcluster.jpg" alt="Go Linux Clusters!"></div>
234
235<hr><div><a name="mirrors"></a></div>
236
237<h3>Software Mirrors on This Server</h3>
238<p>
239<a href="/debian/">This</a>
240<a href="/pub/linux/">ser</a><a href="/pub/software/">ver</a>,
241<tt>lyre.mit.edu</tt>, is a <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>
242<a href="http://www.debian.org/mirror/list">mirror</a> and a
243<a href="http://www.kernel.org/">Linux Kernel</a>
244<a href="http://www.kernel.org/mirrors/">mirror</a> (bzip2 only).  The
245copyright holders have given permission to freely distribute all of the
246material in those mirrors, so you may download any of it.  Except for the small
247Debian non-free section, it is also
248<a href="http://www.debian.org/intro/free">free software</a> (which means more
249than that you can download it without paying).
250<p>
251Share and enjoy this resource.
252
253</div
254</body>
255</html>
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