Infrastructure for Multiphysics Software Integration in High Performance Computing-Aided Science and Engineering

Computational simulation of many of todays important and challenging problems in science and engineering involve multiple, complex, interacting physical systems, and often involve combustion or other sources of energy release. This multiphysics modeling refers to the advanced coupled modeling techniques used to simulate these interacting systems. There are currently no existing accepted open standards for multiphysics application coupling, which causes implementation of many single-problem solutions at high cost. This project will extract and generalize an existing multiphysics software integration infrastructure for use by the broader community interested in developing multiphysics capabilities with existing simulation applications. This general, free, open-source multiphysics infrastructure will serve as a reference implementation to help guide the development of a new open standard for highly inter-operable multiphysics software design and execution. During the Phase I project, a Software Integration Toolkit was designed, and an implementation of that tool kit developed and distributed as the Component Object Manager. The approach is to separate the multiphysics capabilities from the underlying software integration constructs, and then to implement the multiphysics-specific capabilities on top of the general software integration infrastructure. A consortium of stakeholders is being assembled, along with an open website to facilitate distribution of the software and interaction be- tween the stakeholders. The Phase II project will extend and complete the infrastructure based on interaction with the consortium members, with the goal of developing a reference implementation for use by the community, and eventual standardization of multiphysics software construction inter- faces. Example applications and verification and validation problems for multiphysics use will also be constructed and distributed freely to provide evidence of the broad utility of the infrastructure. Commercial Applications and Other Benefits: An open standardized infrastructure will significantly enhance the ability of private sector users to leverage high-performance-computing modeling and simulation in their critical missions, at a fraction of the current cost. The benefits include increased realism, decreased time-to-solution, increased manufacturing capability, reduced manufacturing cost, and a decrease in the product design cycle. Integration-ready software encapsulating couple- ready models are the future of high-performance-computing-based modeling and simulation, and a key to maintaining national competitiveness.