ERCIM News No.21 - April 1995 - CWI

TASC - A Research Consortium for Transport Algorithms and Scientific Computing

by Jan Verwer - CWI


A newly founded Dutch research consortium for transport algorithms and scientific computing focuses at developing highly efficient, parallel software for 3D transport simulation.

In this interdisciplinary consortium (TASC), research groups of six Dutch institutions will collaborate in the field of High Performance Computing for Long-Range Transport Problems in the Atmosphere, Surface Water and Groundwater. Three main tasks are distinguished:

Deliverables will be state-of-the-art parallelized simulation packages for commercial use.

The partners are: National Institute of Public Health and Environmental Protection (RIVM)

All partners are already active in the field and involved in various joint projects. Within the consortium long term cooperation is envisaged.

For densely populated and industrialized countries, control of levels of pollution is becoming more and more important in view of the growing awareness of damaging effects. Reduction of pollution is in general an expensive procedure leading to high costs for society and industry. It is therefore necessary to determine as accurately as possible critical levels and to reduce and control pollution optimally so as to minimize costs. This is a very difficult task and requires complicated simulation models which have to be run on high-speed computers.

Simulation of long-range transport and exchange of chemical and biochemical constituents is of major importance, as pollution phenomena are almost never limited to areas where dangerous pollutants are emitted. Mathematically, transport simulation models are based on mass balance equations constituted by systems of time-dependent partial differential equations, describing fluid flow, transport, chemical and biochemical processes. This makes transport simulation computationally highly expensive. In fact, computer capacity is one of the major limiting factors for 3D simulations in practice. High performance computing is therefore a prerequisite for developing truly qualified transport simulation software. It will enable improving accuracy of predictions considerably. This can be used to advantage in determining cost-effective ways for controlling and/or reducing levels of hazardous pollution.

Please contact:
Jan Verwer - CWI
Tel: +31 20 592 4095
E-mail: janv@cwi.nl


return to the contents page