Contact: Bob Ratliff
A Mississippi State University research engineer is heading a team of computer scientists working to make the nation's coastline safer for boaters and others.
Steve Bova's group recently used high-performance computing techniques to create a model of wave motions at Florida's Ponce Inlet, an Atlantic coastal area near Daytona Beach notorious for waters rough enough to capsize boats. Based at the Waterways Experiment Station's Major Shared Resource Center in Vicksburg, the researchers' wave-motion model is designed to help boaters avoid the inlet's treacherous areas.
"By reducing computer calculation times, it is feasible to model entire coastlines and large bodies of water," said Bova, a research scientist with MSU's National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center. "The advanced programming techniques in our model reduced calculation times from more than six months to less than 72 hours."
The MSRC is home to one of four Department of Defense high-performance computing operations, which houses one of the 10 most powerful computational facilities in the United States.
In addition to Bova, the modeling project's team includes Zeki Demirbilek of WES' Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory and Christine Cuicchi of the WES-based Major Shared Resource Center's Computational Science and Engineering Group.
Demirbilek developed one of three computer programs being used for the project. Cuicchi is a graduate of Starkville High School and MSU's aerospace engineering department.
Other team members include Clay Breshears of Rice University and Henry Gabb of Nichols Research Corp. of Huntsville, Ala. Like the others, they work at the Vicksburg center.
Gabb said this type of modeling research has many defense applications.
"For example, the military wants to locate dangerous areas of water so they won't moor ships there or send in teams of Navy SEALs or Army Rangers," he said.
Other applications include erosion prevention in turbulent areas of the ocean floor and the marking of safe navigation channels, he added.
In recent demonstrations, the Mississippi-based researchers used their computer-generated visualization methods to graphically illustrate Ponce Inlet's harbor and its waves. The gathered data also were explored using an interactive, three-dimensional rendering.
At a national supercomputing conference held last month in Orlando, the MSRC demonstration won the "Most Effective Engineering Methodology Award." It was one of nine from around the world competing for the honor.