The TRACC Computational Cluster
TRACC high-performance computational cluster is a 512-core, customized system from Dell that comprises:
- 128 compute nodes, each with two dual-core AMD 2216 Opteron CPUs and 4 gigabytes of RAM;
- A DataDirect Networks storage system consisting of 180 terabytes of shared RAID storage that is expandable to 720 terabytes;
- A high-bandwidth, low-latency InfiniBand network for computations; and
- A high-bandwidth gigabit Ethernet management network.
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Network Access
TRACC facilities at both the DuPage Airport Flight Center (the home
of the TRACC staff offices and the TRACC Collaboratory) and the DuPage
National Technology Park (the home of the TRACC cluster computer) are
served by high-bandwidth networks with connectivity to the main
Argonne National Laboratory site. As part of the Argonne network,
TRACC's networks are connected to the national and international
research and education network infrastructure, and are protected by
Argonne's cyber-security team. |
Applications Software
In establishing TRACC, the U.S. Department of Transportation identified several national high-priority transportation research issues. The key applications identified by USDOT require the availability of software capabilities in the areas of traffic simulation, computational structural mechanics, and computational fluid dynamics.
As a result, specific engineering analysis software has been installed on TRACC´s massively parallel computer system for use by the USDOT research community:
- The USDOT-developed software system, TRANSIMS, is being used for traffic modeling, including such applications as traffic simulation in metropolitan areas, evacuation planning and evaluation, and long-range regional planning.
- The commercial codes LS-DYNA®, LS-OPT® and ABAQUS® are being used for computational structural mechanics applications, such as bridge stability and dynamics analysis, occupant injury assessment, crash worthiness, roadside hardware evaluation, roadside material modeling and performance of pavement structures.
- The commercial codes STAR-CD®, STAR-CCM+and ANSYS FLUENT® are being used at TRACC for computational fluid dynamics in applications such as bridge hydraulics analysis, flow-induced vibration of bridge components, and vehicle aerodynamics.
- TRUEGRID® is is available for generating high quality meshes for both computational structural mechanics and computational fluid dynamics applications.
- The GNU, Intel, and PathScale compilers and the Intel MPI library are
available for users who wish to run their own software on the cluster.
- NoMachine NX is provided for secure remote desktop virtualization,
enabling users to run graphical and visualization software on the
cluster.
| Outreach, Training, Collaboration and Visualization
TRACC has expanded outreach, training, collaboration, and technology enablement by establishing the TRACC Collaboratory. Through a partnership agreement with the University of Illinois, advanced visualization and communications resources are available for users, collaborators, and our USDOT partners. |
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