Supercomputer usefulness

Binding energy, A1 clusters, 26-27 Biochemical simulations, supercomputer use, 8... 

The supercomputer used for calculations was the Young machine at the Center for Computational Research at the University of Buffalo. For the program to be executed using several processors, a computer-specific script was adopted. 

The hardware limitations of the program mainly rest with the creation of the lattice in memory. The lattices used for the final results, up to 8 million water molecules in size (in the form of a cube with length, width, and height of 110, containing 7986000 molecules), were created on a supercomputer with 2 GB of RAM. Thus, this aspect of the program depends directly on the amount of RAM available and is indefinitely expandable. The supercomputer used for calculations was the U2 machine at the Center for Computational Research at the University of Buffalo. In order to run the program on a parallel-processor supercomputer, we had to use a computer-specific script. 

Figure 2. CPK model of perfluoro(l,3)butadiene. Image generated on a CRAY X-MP supercomputer using OASIS software. The carbons are the dark atoms and the fluorines are the light atoms.

The development of supercomputers has made it possible to apply the idea of potential flow outside the boundary layer and viscous flow inside the boundary layer to yery complex structures and situations. Currently commercial aircraft designs are. tested with supercomputers using the combination of potential flow and jthe boundary layer, much more quickly and cheaply than they could be tested with models in wind tunnels or in flight tests [8]. 

Before continuing this story, let us note that parallel computing has been driven by a happy confluence of two forces. Not only is it technically possible to build more-powerful computers, but also there are many computational fields that are hungry for huge increases in computer performance to be able to complete realistic calculations. Current and potential uses of supercomputers are illustrated in Table I. The supercomputer uses outlined in Table I are both academically and usually commercially interesting. Other major fields of interest to industry and the military are shown in Table II. 

TABLE II Supercomputer Uses of Interest to Industry and the Military... 

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