New high performance computers in Mainz and Kaiserslautern lead Rhineland-Palatinate to the top of Germany´s research elite

By: University Article edited and translated by ISGS


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The state government, the German Research Foundation (DFG), the Johannes Gutenberg-University in Mainz and the University of Kaiserslautern invested a total of almost 5.5 million euros in the two new high-performance mainframe computers, thereby pushing Rhineland-Palatinate to the top of high-end research in this area. The high-speed computing systems strengthen cutting-edge research projects – be it in the field of meteorology, genomics, chemistry, physics, mechanical engineering or research of new materials.

The president of the University of Kaiserslautern, Univ.-Prof. Dr. Helmut J. Schmidt, says: “High performance computing has been an important part of research in physics, chemistry, biology and mechanical engineering for a long time. Even disciplines like social sciences or computer science increasingly make use of high performance computing for the simulation of complex and highly parallelized systems in order to gain a better understanding of their underlying correlations. With the new high performance computer in Kaiserslautern, the research scientists at the University of Kaiserslautern now have a suitable tool to make further progress in their research work. The successful implementation of such systems depends on a suitable support structure, which has been built up by appropriate training and seminars.”

At the University of Kaiserslautern, high performance computing is used by working groups and institutes in the fields of engineering and natural sciences. In mechanical engineering, fluid dynamics simulations are performed, mass properties are simulated and  ​​thermodynamic calculations are done. In physics, thousands of differential equations must be solved rapidly in order to simulate the behavior of Ferro magnets under exposure of short-term laser pulses. The chemical engineers at the University of Kaiserslautern for example deal with the avoidance of chemical waste products with the help of  synthesis processes or perform calculations to understand the electronic structure of atoms and molecules better. In biology for example, high-performance computing is important for the analysis of gene-sequences and phylogenetics, which deals with the development of and evolutionary relations among organisms.

• Alliance for high performance computing in Rhineland-Palatinate (AHRP)
• Link to the German article

Picture source: Wikicommens, RobH

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