How can supercomputing resources be used to design and analyze structures?
Rebecca Hartman-Baker
(rjhartma@cse.uiuc.edu)
(not ready to use)
ASK
Partner Projects
| GK-12 Teaching Fellowships |
Subject Areas
| Information Science, Mathematics, Science, Supercomputing |
Grade Levels
| 11, 12, Undergraduate, Continuing, Informal |
Unit Keywords
|
supercomputing, structural analysis, engineering, civil engineering, truss, GiD, SSH, FElt, finite elements, scientific computing, computational science, simulation |
Open Directory Category
|
Science:Technology:Civil Engineering:Structures
Computers:Supercomputing |
Rationale of the Unit
| To help students understand how civil engineers design safe structures; to demonstrate the application of abstract physics concepts to real-world problems. |
Background:
http://www.asce.org (American Society of Civil Engineers website)
Basic statics knowledge acquired from a beginning physics course |
| After the students completed the project, we asked them whether the results from the supercomputer actually made sense. If they imagined a gigantic hand squishing their structure, would it actually behave in the way the computer said it would? After all, computers are only good at number crunching and have no common sense. |
| Not all the students managed to complete the whole project. Also, the finite element program on the supercomputer was kind of flaky and sometimes it didn't work. But for those who did complete it, I think they enjoyed using the supercomputer and I think they got a taste of the life of a civil engineer. Students with higher computer literacy had better luck with the project because they weren't as afraid of the command prompt that they saw on the supercomputer. |
Credits & Acknowledgements
Joe Liaw, Hinsdale Central High School, whose Physics classes did this project.
Nancy Komlanc, TRECC, who was quite helpful in getting me what I needed for the project.
Tom Roney, TRECC, the sysadmin for the computing cluster, who was very accomodating to me and the students |
Uploaded Files:
sucom.pdf
projtalk.pdf
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