Pyrometallurgy Advanced Computing Introduction Facilities Research

There are two installations currently in use.

The first facility is an advanced Beowulf Class-1 cluster supercomputer using four powerful computation-node machines (Intel Pentium 4 2.2GHz processors, with 256MB DDR-RAM memory) and a dedicated cluster management node (a Pentium 4 1.8GHz processor with 256MB RDRAM). The cluster is networked together on a TCP/IP peer-to-peer network using a 3COM 100MBps SOHO-class switch. All machines use Red Hat Linux 9 as operating system, and PVM 3.4.4 for cluster management and interface. Code development on the manager node is performed mainly using the KDevelop C++ IDE. Samba provides file-sharing compatibility between Linux and Windows machines on the same netowrk. Programmed correctly, this facility delivers nearly 9 GFLOPS of raw performance and will be unmatched by any single desktop workstation for the next three to four years.

To date, this cluster machine has been applied to solution of the most taxing of pyrometallurgical problems, including high-resolution dynamic CFD modelling of the DC plasma arc, 3D heat transfer design and optimisation problems, molecular mechanics simulations of slag-system macromolecules, and thermal radiation problems with large numbers of surface elements. This machine is also the renderfarm for high-quality raytraced animations required to visualise the behaviour of many of the mathematical models used. Development of new modelling techniques using this facility is ongoing.

The second facility, the Windows desktop machine, is a standard uniprocessor Intel Celeron 1.7GHz computer, with 256MB DDR-RAM memory and a 20GB hard drive. This machine is the primary MS Windows coding and operations platform (it runs Windows2000 Professional SP4 and MS Visual Studio 6.0), and is used to run the smaller, faster simulation codes as well as doing some problem pre- and post-processing for Linux-based cluster. Since this PC is multifunctional, issues such as stability, reliability, and multitasking prowess are regularly tested. The Windows desktop also runs the Mintek intranet website for Quinn Reynolds and Pyrometallurgy Advanced Computing, using Apache 2.0.41 webserver software.

The Beowulf Project
Red Hat Linux
KDevelop C++ Programming Environment
Samba
Parallel Virtual Machine

The advanced facilities use open source software whenever possible. Go here to find out why: The Open Source Initiative