NAFEMS Workshop on HPC in Engineering Simulation

NAFEMS will be holding a special workshop titled "High Performance Computing for Engineering Simulation". This workshop is part of the biennial NAFEMS World Congress (http://www.nafems.org/congress) being held in Boston USA from 23-26 May 2011. The aim of the workshop is to promote discussion about the changing HPC landscape. Participants will include the users of engineering simulation software, those that develop it and those who provide the underlying hardware infrastructure.

NAFEMS is the international association for engineering simulation. It has a large international membership, spanning more than 950 organizations, from engineering companies and technology vendors to academia. NAFEMS provides an independent forum for developing and promoting best practice in engineering simulation. It achieves this by hosting technical working groups, regional groups and organizing awareness seminars and conferences.

In recent years, NAFEMS members have shown a growing interest in HPC. This is due to the rapidly changing technology landscape. Simulation professionals can now chose between various technologies including multicore processors, graphics processing units, grid computing and cloud computing. Members have many concerns including (i) Will my type of problem run more quickly using HPC? (ii) What type of hardware should I buy? (iii) How do I buy compute access as a service? (iv) What are the software licensing issues? (v) Is my data safe on the grid or cloud? (vi) Can my company access academic supercomputing facilities?

Encouraging a wider uptake of HPC in engineering simulation needs a many-way dialogue between potential users, software vendors, hardware vendors and service providers. The NAFEMS "High Performance Computing for Engineering Simulation" workshop will provide an independent forum for exchanging ideas that will benefit all those who participate.

If you would like to be involved, please contact Dr Lee Margetts (lee.margetts@manchester.ac.uk) at the University of Manchester for further details. The NAFEMS World Congress also provides exhibition space and opportunities for sponsorship. Details of these can be obtained from Roger Oswald (roger.oswald@nafems.org), Conference Organizer.