Runoff and infiltration characteristics of pavement structures--review of an extensive monitoring program.

The stormwater runoff and infiltration performance of permeable pavements has been systematically evaluated within an intensive monitoring program. The primary objective of the investigation was to generate a broad database, which enables the development of an advanced simulation module for urban drainage modelling. Over 160 field and lab scale experiments have been completed and analyzed for surface runoff and infiltration characteristics. The test series include several pavement types under various boundary conditions such as diverse precipitation impacts, varying surface slope and layer construction as well as different stages of surface clogging and several base and subgrade layer characteristics. The results represent a reliable and comprehensive database that allows profound conclusions and substantial recommendations.     

Calculation of single adsorption isotherms from gravimetrically measured binary gas mixture adsorption isotherms on activated carbon at high pressures

A method is developed for the calculation of single-component adsorption isotherms from gravimetrically measured binary gas mixture adsorption isotherms at high pressures, at two temperatures and for different mole fractions of the gas phase. The adsorption of nitrogen/methane on active carbon Norit R1 is taken as an experimental example.     

Large-scale grid-enabled lattice Boltzmann simulations of complex fluid flow in porous media and under shear

Well-designed lattice Boltzmann codes exploit the essentially embarrassingly parallel features of the algorithm and so can be run with considerable efficiency on modern supercomputers. Such scalable codes permit us to simulate the behaviour of increasingly large quantities of complex condensed matter systems. In the present paper, we present some preliminary results on the large-scale three-dimensional lattice Boltzmann simulation of binary immiscible fluid flows through a porous medium, derived from digitized X-ray micro-tomographic data of Bentheimer sandstone, and from the study of the same fluids under shear. Simulations on such scales can benefit considerably from the use of computational steering, and we describe our implementation of steering within the lattice Boltzmann code, called LB3D, making use of the RealityGrid steering library. Our large-scale simulations benefit from the new concept of capability computing, designed to prioritize the execution of big jobs on major supercomputing resources. The advent of persistent computational grids promises to provide an optimal environment in which to deploy these mesoscale simulation methods, which can exploit the distributed nature of computer, visualization and storage resources to reach scientific results rapidly; we discuss our work on the grid-enablement of lattice Boltzmann methods in this context.     

Efficient Embedded Computing

Hardwired ASICs - 50X more efficient than programmable processors - sacrifice programmability to meet the efficiency requirements of demanding embedded systems. Programmable processors use energy mostly to supply instructions and data to the arithmetic units, and several techniques can reduce instruction- and data-supply energy costs. Using these techniques in the Stanford ELM processor closes the gap with ASICs to within 3X.     

Lattice Boltzmann simulations in microfluidics: probing the no-slip boundary condition in hydrophobic, rough, and surface nanobubble laden microchannels

In this contribution, we review recent efforts on investigations of the effect of (apparent) boundary slip by utilizing lattice Boltzmann simulations. We demonstrate the applicability of the method to treat fundamental questions in microfluidics by investigating fluid flow in hydrophobic and rough microchannels as well as over surfaces covered by nano- or microscale gas bubbles.     

Improved framework for the maintenance of the JET intershot analysis chain

At the JET experiment data from routine diagnostics is analysed automatically by a suite of codes within minutes after operation. The maintenance of these interdependent codes and the provision of a consistent state of the physics database over many experimental campaigns against a backdrop of continuous hardware and software updates, requires well defined maintenance and validation procedures. In this paper, the development of a new generation of maintenance tools using distributed version control and a work-flow following the principle of continuous integration [1] is described.     

Block-structured grids in Lagrangian 3D edge plasma transport simulations

Distinct from conventional Eulerian 2D fluid solvers, applied routinely to magnetic fusion edge plasma studies, complex 3D magnetic topologies are currently treated by the geometrically more flexible Lagrangian schemes, supplemented by Monte Carlo procedures for higher order derivatives (dissipative terms due to diffusion processes) and sources. These particle based algorithms are combined with a field line reconstruction technique for dealing with partially ergodic magnetic fields, involving field aligned regular grids. A generalization to block-structured grids is carried out, which greatly enhances the applicability range of present 3D fusion plasma edge codes, in particular also to poloidally magnetic diverted configurations, as currently envisaged for the largest magnetic fusion device under construction: ITER.