TRACC Computational Cluster

The TRACC computational cluster is a 512-core, customized LS-1 system from Linux Networx that comprises

• 128 compute nodes, each with two dual-core AMD 2216 Opteron CPUs and 4 gigabytes of RAM;
• A DataDirect Networks storage system consisting of 240 terabytes of shared RAID storage that is expandable to 750 terabytes;
• A high-bandwidth, low-latency InfiniBand network for computations; and
• A high-bandwidth Gigabit Ethernet management network.

The TRACC cluster is connected to Argonne's network by a 10Gb/s uplink, and to the Internet through Argonne's multiple 2.4Gb links. For applications demanding even higher bandwidth, TRACC is connected through Argonne to Internet2, to which 94% of USDOT University Transportation Centers have access.

Multidimensional Data Visualization

The TRACC HPC is closely coupled with, and provides access to, the advanced visualization and networking facilities of the University of Illinois Technology, Research, Education, and Commercialization Center.

Applications Software

In establishing TRACC, the U.S. Department of Transportation identified several national high-priority transportation research issues. The key applications identified by USDOT require the availability of software capabilities in the areas of traffic simulation, computational structural mechanics, and computational fluid dynamics.

As a result, specific engineering analysis software has been implemented on TRACC’s massively parallel computer system for use by the USDOT research community:

• The USDOT-developed software system, TRANSIMS, is being used for traffic modeling, including such applications as traffic simulation in metropolitan areas, evacuation planning and evaluation, and long-range regional planning.
• The commercial code LS-DYNA® is being used for computational structural mechanics applications, such as crashworthiness, roadside hardware evaluation, and bridge stability and dynamics analysis.
• The commercial codes STAR-CD and ANSYS Fluent are used and supported at TRACC for computational fluid dynamics in applications such as bridge hydraulics analysis, flow-induced vibration of bridge components, and vehicle aerodynamics.