Distributed Computing for Plasma Simulations

★ This course has now ended but you can access the course materials by registering ★
Course Date: June 8th – August 10th, 2016
Registration Fee: $650 (Regular), $325 (Student)
20% discount to former students!
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Overview

In this course we develop parallel PIC plasma simulation codes that utilize power of multiple cores, multiple computers, and even graphics cards to obtain results faster or to tackle problems larger than possible with a single CPU serial code. We will specifically address multithreading, distributed computing with MPI, and GPU programming with CUDA. We will apply these techniques to the 3D Cartesian flow past a sphere simulation from PIC Fundamentals. The course will primarily utilize C/C++ but will also introduce options available in Python and external HPC libraries.

Course Objectives

At the conclusion of this eight week online course, you should have a solid understanding of code parallelization techniques, and be able to develop codes utilizing multithreading, MPI, and CUDA.

Course Format

The course consists of eight lectures that were conducted through Citrix® GoToMeeting. All registered students receive access to a student area where the course materials are posted. These materials include recordings of the lectures, copy of the lesson slides, and example codes. The course also includes optional weekly homework assignments, which will need to be completed in order to receive a certificate of completion.

Course Outline

Examples

Example slides on MPI and CUDA parallelization

Assignments

Instructor

The instructor, Dr. Lubos Brieda, is the founder and president of Particle In Cell Consulting, LLC, a Los Angeles-based company specializing in providing tools and services for the plasma physics and rarefied gas communities. Dr. Brieda has over 10 years of experience developing PIC codes for a wide range of applications, including electric propulsion, space environment interactions, surface processing, and plasma medicine. His teaching experience includes the position of a Lecturer at the George Washington University.

Requirements

Completion of the PIC Fundamentals course, or an existing understanding of the Particle In Cell (PIC) method, including particle motion, mesh interpolation, and field solving. In addition, all students are expected to have a basic understanding of numerical techniques, plasma and gas dynamics, and computer programming. The lectures and demonstration programs will utilize the C++ programming language. Students need to have access to a computer with a compiler of choice. We will use Amazon Web Services (AWS) for the cluster environment. Computer with an Nvidia CUDA compatible graphics card is recommended but not required as we will run some CUDA cases on AWS. Computer with Internet access will be needed to access the lectures and course material. The course will be conducted in English.

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