The Army High-Performance Computing Research Center (AHPCRC)

The Army High Performance Computing Research Center (AHPCRC) is a consortium of universities including Stanford as the lead along with University of Texas at El Paso, New Mexico State University and Morgan State University.

We are working in cooperation with the Army Research Laboratory (ARL) on advancing the field of computation-based engineering science. Specifically, we focus on advancing the state of the art in the efficient, scalable solution of multiscale, multiphysics and big-data problems on the next-generation high-performance computing systems.

Our research and educational program at AHPCRC is organized around vertically integrated projects featuring fundamental research, thematic research and outreach activities.

Our basic research program focuses on two objectives:

• Producing cutting-edge software tools for the next-generation HPC environments.
• Developing innovative computational methodologies that harness the power of these new environments to solve some of the most challenging problems in engineering and science. These are typically multidisciplinary and multiscale. Unraveling their intricacies requires high-fidelity numerical models and simulations. Exploiting their solutions in an engineering setting requires the reduction of the dimensionality of these computational models.

Our thematic research program is currently organized around three different themes:

• The Computational Blast and Ballistics for Systems Theme, which addresses the Under Body Blast problem. This theme is relevant to many other applications such as extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy for kidney stones and ultrasonic precision cleaning.
• The Medical Theme, which leverages the recent meteoric rise of computational biotechnology and its application to medical problems. It currently focuses on studying blood microcirculation and flow in the lungs, examining the deposition of pathogens in the respiratory tract and assessing the effects of under body blasts on vehicle crews.
• The Computational Materials Theme, which looks at piezoelectric materials and chemically doped graphene, and focuses on multiscale studies of the electronic and optical properties of materials. It has vast applications in nanodevices, electronic materials and materials under dynamic stresses. 

Our outreach activities constitute an important part of our program for two major reasons:

• They support the development of future science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education efforts.
• They assist minority-serving Institutions in building their curriculum as well as enhancing their research capabilities in computational science.

Through the research and educational activities outlined above, AHPCRC has made stellar contributions not only to engineering and science, but also to the development of the future engineers and scientists our society needs.

We keep looking forward to the next challenges.