rick@cs.arizona.edu (Rick Schlichting) (05/07/91)
[Dr. David Kahaner is a numerical analyst visiting Japan for two-years
under the auspices of the Office of Naval Research-Asia (ONR/Asia).
The following is the professional opinion of David Kahaner and in no
way has the blessing of the US Government or any agency of it. All
information is dated and of limited life time. This disclaimer should
be noted on ANY attribution.]
[Copies of previous reports written by Kahaner can be obtained from
host cs.arizona.edu using anonymous FTP.]
To: Distribution
From: David K. Kahaner ONR Asia [kahaner@xroads.cc.u-tokyo.ac.jp]
Re: Japan's "Alpha" project to develop modern 3d CFD software.
6 May 1991
ABSTRACT.
The Alpha Project is a coordinated effort by Japanese industry ( NEC,
Fujitsu, Matsushita, Hitachi, NKK, Kobe, Toshiba...) to develop a modern
three dimensional computer program for computational fluid dynamics. This
report describes the background of the project and its current status. We
also assess its future potential.
INTRODUCTION.
In 1988 several Japanese companies came together to form the Association
for Large Scale Fluid Dynamics Code. One of their research activities has
been investigation of new software for fluid dynamics, administratively
called the Alpha-Flow Project. Initially the Association was composed of
15 companies that together provided about $10 Million US. About 15% was
also loaned to the Association by the Japan Key Technology Center which
is set up by MITI and funded by interest on income from the stock of NTT.
(Such nonprofit foundations are part of Japan's "third sector" and play
an important role in supporting science.) In addition there were about 30
additional companies who have paid lesser amounts.
The motivations behind the project are that mathematical modeling of
fluid flow by computer, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a crucial
part of large scale engineering simulation for nuclear reactors, aircraft
design, wind flow around large structures, etc. Japanese industry makes
heavy use of programs that perform simulation, and their utilization is
bound to increase. For example, it is estimated that between 1% and 2% of
Japanese construction industry sales revenue goes for R&D; the figure in
the US is less than 0.05%, less than one twentieth as much. There is
anecdotal evidence that Japanese are using computational modeling for
more long range projects than corresponding US companies. US firms tend
to use simulation packages for immediate projects. One western scientist
told me that after the project is over companies that he was familiar
with often forget how to use the package, in some cases even forget that
they have it.
Most CFD programs are either proprietary and only provided as
"executables" by commercial vendors, or private such as those used at the
Department of Energy Laboratories, such as Livermore or Los Alamos.
Japanese use of Western simulation programs varies from using them as
black boxes, without detailed knowledge of the "inside" of these packages
to significant enhancements that have been made to some programs that
were made available to them from National Laboratories.
CFD poses very severe difficulties in terms of the mathematical model and
the details of its implementation. Programs that solve "real" problems
usually contain tens of thousands of lines of (mostly) Fortran, written
over many years by a heterogeneous collection of physicists, engineers,
and computer scientists. Maintenance and documentation of these programs
is often spotty; they are the typical "dusty decks". Recently, there has
been some effort to modernize CFD programs, but it is rare that a
completely new package is developed from first principles.
A large modeling problem can consume endless hours of supercomputer time
and generate enormous quantities of printed and graphical output. Using
these programs can be tricky. The underlying model incorporates various
assumptions and approximations; designers and users are always hoping to
"add more physics", refine the numerical mesh, improve the numerical
methods, etc. It is often difficult to validate a program and
scientifically risky to use one without a great deal of expertise and/or
consulting assistance. Thus a good program represents a very significant
economic asset to its owners. Charge-back costs to users are high in
order to recoup the substantial development expenses and to support
ongoing research. Just as importantly, end user companies are often
naturally nervous about being dependent on software that their engineers
do not entirely understand. Most companies would rather have their
engineers understand the working of computer programs that provide
answers they need to rely on. Further, to get the most out of such
complicated programs, and to avoid being misled by incorrect and
incomplete answers, it is essential that users have some understanding of
how these programs work. It seems perfectly reasonable that Japanese
industry should want to develop their own, in-house expertise.
ALPHA PROJECT.
Three key people who have been instrumental in starting the Alpha project
are
Mr. Hiroshi Mizuta
Special Assistant to the President
Program Planning and Management Department
National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA)
World Trade Center Bldg
2-4-1, Hamamatsu-cho
Minato-ku, Tokyo 106 Japan
Tel: +81 3 5470-4255, Fax: +81 3 3432-3969
Email: MIZUTA@NSAVAX.SPAN.NASA.GOV
Prof Mamoru Akiyama
Dept of Nuclear Engineering
University of Tokyo
7-3-1 Hongo
Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113, Japan
Tel: +81 3 3812-2111, ext 6989
Prof Ryoiti Takahasi
Dept of Mechanical Engineering
Tokyo Institute of Technology
2-12-1 Ohokayama
Meguro-ku, Tokyo 152, Japan
Tel:+81 3 3726-1111, ext 3058
These three have known each other for many years (Mizuta and Akiyama
since high school); the common denominator is their association with
nuclear technology. Before Mizuta moved to NASDA he spent a number of
years at PNC, a government funded organization looking into fast breeder
reactors and the nuclear fuel cycle. Now he is responsible for planning
issues related to computing. Akiyama is primarily interested in thermal
hydraulics, but is also chairman of the committee that advises MITI about
the nuclear industry. He also wrote a clear overview of the Alpha project
in the Proceedings of the International Conference on Supercomputing in
Nuclear Applications (March 1989), ppA2:60-65. Takahasi specializes in
large scale computing of nuclear models.
The Association gets input from end users, academic researchers, as well
as its members. Basic research, mostly in industrial labs or at
universities, helps to decide the fundamental mathematical, physical, and
numerical techniques. Akiyama told me that there are 50-100 people
associated with the project in various ways.
A contract software company (Fuji Reseach Institute Corp (FRIC)) does
the program implementations. Currently, there are between 30 and 40
programmers and computer analysts working on the project at FRIC.
Dr. Hideaki Koiki
Fuji Research Institute Corp
Shibaura Center
3-2-12 Kaigan, Minato-ku, Tokyo 108, Japan
Tel: +81-3-5476-2294, Fax: +81-3-5476-0405
is the technical leader of the FRIC group, and coordinated a recent visit
of mine to their institute.
A biannual meeting gives researchers an opportunity to show their latest
results and for the Alpha project developers to present their progress. A
Proceedings is issued in Japanese, although at the March 1990 meeting Dr.
Eric Hollnagel (Computer Resources International, Denmark) gave a very
general discussion of the potential usefulnesses of AI and Human Computer
Interaction when coupled with the power of a supercomputer. A list of
the titles presented at both the March 1990 meeting and the Jan 1991
meeting are attached to this report.
According to Mizuta, a key aspect of the project is that Japanese
scientists want access to the insides of complicated CFD programs in
order to verify and understand exactly what they are doing. My own
experience in other general mathematical software is that this is not
always necessary in really well designed programs as long as the physical
and mathematical model have been carefully worked out. The apparent need
here probably reflects both the string and thumbtack construction of some
CFD programs and the fact that the models are usually not entirely
satisfactory. Mizuta claims that this phase of the Alpha project has
focused on the physical model to be solved and the numerical techniques
to be utilized. The project has been developing single phase three
dimensional solvers, using finite differences only, for a variety of
physical situations. Finite elements are not being considered at this
time as they are thought to be too slow. Approximately 100,000-150,000
lines of Fortran have been written to support the solver part of Alpha,
organized as follows.
Solver for incompressible flows (A module for Cartesian and
cylindrical coordinates, and one for boundary fitted
coordinates. There is also a module for free surfaces.)
Solver for heat transfer in solids
Solver for mass transfer (where trace amounts of material are
mixed with the fluid)
Solver for incompressible flows with multiple free boundaries
Solver for chemically reacting flows (low velocity reaction flow)
Solver for compressible flows (for high velocity viscous flow).
The fifteen companies that support the Association will be permitted to
have copies of all the source programs; other members will get
"executables" only. However, during the development phases participating
researchers will have access to some parts of the source programs,
presumably for them to study and test. It is expected that each company
will modify the programs either for their own needs, or to optimize
sections for particular hardware.
This phase of the project is focusing on the scientific and engineering
aspects in the design of a CFD package, i.e., the model. This is natural
given the background of the research team and the engineering expertise
of the supporting companies. However, there are other issues that are
also very important such as the following.
* Modularity and portability
* Hardware independence and optimization for different computers
* Maintenance framework for large (huge) source programs
* Documentation
* User interface
* Incorporation of expert systems and AI for advice on problem set up,
interpretation and management of results.
* Adaption of the programs to advanced computer architectures, such as
parallel computers.
Mizuta claims that they want to tackle these issues and lists them as
among their most important goals. Nevertheless, he admits that they
haven't done much in any of these directions, and that the concept of
using expert systems, etc., is easier in principle than in practice.
Some items in the list above will be easier to accomplish than others.
For example we already know how to design numerical software with
interchangeable parts and to plan for a high degree of portability. It is
more difficult to also get highly optimized software, especially over a
wide spectrum of machine architectures. Adding intelligence to numerical
programs is a new, major research area and there is significant work at
Purdue, Rutgers, and other places. In the West, especially in the
National Labs, Petro-Chemical companies, and other places where CFD
programs are in heavy use, there are major efforts to study the
implications of new machines, such as parallel and distributed computers.
The Alpha project has not looked into this aspect.
I was surprised to learn that Mizuta, and presumably the other Alpha-flow
project scientists, was not well connected into the community of Western
researchers who have been actively studying most of these topics. For
example, participation in the "Expert Systems in Numerical Computation"
conference that is held each year at Purdue. On the other hand papers in
the recent Alpha-flow Symposium concerning the man-machine interface are
full of references to current research in the West. At the moment there
is also almost no participation from scientists in the West, although
Mizuta and others are known in the Western CFD community and have
recently returned from a trip to several US labs. When I asked about
this, Mizuta explained that at the beginning the Japanese didn't feel
that they had anything to contribute and wanted to bring their own
expertise up to a credible level first.
After Mizuta said that the emphasis was on the solvers I was amazed to
learn during my visit to Fuji that the user interface has not been
neglected; almost 300,000 lines of C have been written in the man-
machine section. These include
Control module
Module for input generation
Module for interactive post-processing
AI module (expert system)
Module for data management.
I was shown a few brief demonstrations of the system which looked quite
powerful as well as flexible, but had no opportunity to study any parts
in detail. The design philosophy is to write the Fortran in the form of
portable and modular machine independent subroutines, and the man-machine
interface in similarly portable and modular form. The latter would be
expected to run under X-Windows on a Unix workstation, and the Fortran
on a remote (super) computer. Between these parts would be a "gateway"
module which would contain all the machine specific details of the
implementation. There is a complicated flow of data between modules, but
this is standardized by use of a standard file format and a conversion
description standard, which appear to be well thought out.
Mizuta and Akiyama have stated that they want international cooperation
on the project. Akiyama wrote that "we solicit cooperation from all
quarters". I asked what form this might take, as the only people who are
entitled to copies of the source programs are the supporting industries.
Initially, there was some ambiguity about this. Mizuta thought that
Western scientists might want to participate in order to be able to
compare their programs against Alpha's, but that certainly would not be
enough to appeal to me. When I asked Akiyama the same question he
admitted that he really meant cooperation from additional Japanese
companies who may want to contribute financially. As far as other
researchers are concerned, he thought that some neutral information
could be shared with them, but that this would have to be discussed with
the steering committee, as was my request to visit FRIC in order to see
a demonstration. Subsequently though, Mizuta explained that he expected
to be able to offer Western researchers (academic, not commercial)
copies of source modules. This would be a perfectly fair exchange to
obtain cooperation and I hope that this is in fact what will happen. In
fact, I hope to convince Mizuta to demonstrate Alpha during this year's
Supercompting 91 meeting, in Albuqueque, New Mexico.
I was told several times that this is not really a government project.
In fact one of Alpha's accomplishments has been to bring together
distinct Japanese companies to build the software foundation that they
can each particularize. Industrial partners get source programs and can
then make modifications to suit their own needs. The Alpha group has no
responsibility to maintain these modified programs.
At the current stage of the project, a good deal of program structure has
been developed, combining computational modules with an intelligent front
end through the gateway. According to the project schedule most of the
documentation work is being done this year. All the documentation that I
saw was in Japanese, which would definitely be an impediment to Western
cooperation, but is probably essential to effective use of the software
here.
It was emphasized to me that the two goals are (1) developing
vectorizable programs, and (2) making the problem set-up easy to use.
Using the absolutely best algorithm, or at least fine tuning it was not
considered so important. The project participants are hard at work
verifying the models by running them on about 20 major test problems,
most of which are completed. These included such things as boundary
fitted coordinates, etc. (Some of these tests were presented in the
papers listed at the end of this report and give a good indication of the
activity.) The "boundary fitted coordinate" technique (sometimes referred
to as "body" instead of "boundary") is quite similar to low order finite-
element methods. Both methods use non-rectangular meshes. I was shown
several slides of flow patterns from Alpha side by side with those from
other computations or experiments and the agreement looked excellent. I
remarked to Akiyama that these pictures didn't give any information about
how successful the project was at achieving either (1) or (2) above, but
the demonstrations were persuasive with respect to the second. For
example, in dealing with incompressible flow the AI module has about 100
rules. There is also an online manual.
My opinion is that we should not judge Alpha only by what it has produced
thus far. Although it may have made major strides in educating and
bringing together Japanese scientists, from a global research perspective
its accomplishments seem modest. A great deal of their development has
duplicated, i.e., either copied or adapted existing published work. For
example, the "multiple free boundary" work is based on SOLA-VOF,
developed in the US.
A recent visit to the vendor displays at Supercomputing Japan '91, shows
many Western engineering analysis software packages with very graphically
oriented interfaces. Alpha has only been in existence about three years,
75% of its funding schedule. Considering that it started with a clean
sheet, this is not much time when compared to the efforts that have
occurred developing CFD packages elsewhere. Hence it is unlikely that
the Alpha-flow program is yet competitive with the best CFD packages
either from the US or from Europe.
However, Mizuta is very clear that the code name Alpha represents the
first letter of the alphabet, and that he firmly intends to see Beta,
Gamma, even to Omega. He claims that he has strong support from Japanese
industry and that many new companies want "in." Further, there is
interest in using the framework to develop software for molecular
computations and new materials design. Akiyama is less interested in
such grand goals. He admitted to me that the Beta project will probably
focus only on two-phase flow, which is of less general interest (few of
the Japanese auto companies are likely to participate) and hence will
need only about half its current funding ($5 million US). The Gamma
project will probably involve Monte Carlo or stochastic methods
development. For his own research, Akiyama is more interested in
building a very advanced simulator (using a massively parallel computer
and sophisticated software) for major nuclear accidents that he hopes
will never occur.
The educational aspect of this project should not be ignored. Mizuta
emphasized that one goal was to involve universities - the idea being the
establishment of knowledge centers that will continue to produce people
(students) with knowledge of computational fluid dynamics. About a half
dozen university groups have been funded under the Alpha project.
These has been a trend in the US (possibly elsewhere) to use
commercial/private software without understanding how the software
functions or what assumptions and approximations are made in the
software. This is a very bad trend; perhaps the Alpha project is partly a
reaction to this situation. The Alpha project seems to indicate that the
Japanese are taking a long range view by trying to increase the number of
engineers and scientists who are familiar with large scale numerical
simulation techniques. This approach will eventually put them in a much
better position to exploit computational modeling for a wide range of
applications. It would be useful if more US companies thought the same
way.
A final note. I asked if there was interest from the Japanese aircraft
industry, as CFD is such an important aspect of aircraft design. Akiyama
said no, mostly because in Japan that industry is concentrated in a few
companies such as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries that already have extensive
software of their own and see no need to support research outside their
own organization.
SUGGESTION.
Scientists outside Japan need to view the project as a first step and as
an educational tool. At the same time Alpha's steering committee needs to
clarify the question of access to information. Perhaps Western input
could be helpful in forming these ideas.
TITLES FROM MARCH 1990 3RD WORKSHOP ON ALPHA PROJECT.
1. Computational flow simulations for hulls and keels of the America's
Cup yacht.
Y. Ando, K.Muraoka, M. Kawai, a. Masuko, H. Manabe
Ishikawajima-harima Heavy Industries. Co.,Ltd.
2.Atmospheric General Circulation Models
-A Global Environment calculated by a Supercomputer:
-A Global Environment calculated by a Supercomputer
The Present State and Future of the General Circulation Model-
Yoshinobu Nikaidou
Meteorological Research Institute
Clmate Research Institute
3.Development Status of an Advanced Fluid Dynamic Analysis Code:
Alpha Flow
Hideaki Koike
Fuji Souken
1)Three Dimensional Numerical Simulation of Turbulent flowfield around
Building by using the Module Alpha Flow for analyzing incompressible
fluid
Shin Saito
Computer Science Department
Asahi Chemical Industry Co., Ltd
19. Numerical Calculations for Free Surface Flow Problems
Haruo Terasaka Toshiba Corporation
Noboru Yamazaki Fuji Research Institute Corp.(Fuji Souken)
3-b. Anisothermal Turbulent Flow Analysis in a Cylindrical Vessel
with Large Scale Recirculating Regions
Shin-ichi Nakajima Toshiba Corporation
5-a. Numerical Analysis for Incompressible flow by Boundary fitted
Coordinate Technique in Alpha Flow
Katsuhiro Nagano
Fuji Souken
5-b. Natural Convection in Cylindrical Annuli
Hiroyoshi Ueda
Advanced Power Reactors Engineering Department
Nuclear Power Research & Development Center
Tokyo Electric Power Company
6. Three-Dimensional Numerical Calculation of Flow and Temperature
Field Past Cooling Tower
Toshiyoshi Mihasi
Fuji Souken
8. The Numerical Simulation and the Verification for Chemical Industry
Hitoshi Inoue
Engineering Center
Asahi Chemical Ind. Co., Ltd
11. CFD Viewed from the Standpoint of CAE
Akira Mizukami
Products Development Dept.
Research and Development Center, Electronics Division
NKK
15. Numerical Analysis of Discharge Thermal Plasma
Masaaki Suzuki, Yoshifumi Sato
Research Lab. for Nuclear Reactors
Tokyo Institute of Technology
16. Numerical and Experimental Study on Air Flow around Buildings
-Comparison of kappa-epsiron Model, ASM,LES and Wind Tunnel Test
for Flowfield around Cube-
Shuzo Murakami
Akashi Mochida
Yoshihiko Hayashi
Institute of Industrial Science
University of Tokyo
17. A Large-scale Flow Analysis by a Supercomputer
Masahiro Ikegawa
Mechanical Engineering Research Lab.
Hitachi, Ltd
18. On the Function and Performance of the Module in Alpha Flow
to Analyze Compressible Flow
M. Kakei, D. Biswas
Fuji Souken
20. Airborne Particles in A Clean Room-
Examples by Mass Transport Module- Simulations of Distribution
of Airborne Particles in a Clean Room
Osamu Ukai
System Engineering Dep.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd
21. Man-Machine Interface of Alpha Flow
Tohru Nishimura
Fuji Souken
22. AI module of Alpha Flow
Kiyoshi Matsubara
Fuji Souken
Concluding Remarks
Director of Alpha Project Office
H. Hirabayashi
TITLES FROM JANUARY 1991 WORKSHOP ON ALPHA PROJECT.
State of Arts and Future in Computational Fluid Dynamics
1. Computational Flow Simulations for Hulls and Keels of the America's Cup
Yacht
Yasunori Ando, K. Muraoka, M. Kawai, A. Masuko, H. Manabe (Research
Institute, Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries Co, Ltd.)
2. Atmospheric General Circulation Models - A Global Environment Calculated
by a Super Computer: The Present State and Future of the General
Circulation Model -
Yoshinobu Nikaido (Japan Meteorological Agency
Simulation Results by Alpha-Flow: Part I
3. Progress Report on a-Flow Development
Hideaki Koike (Fuji Research Institute Corporation)
4. Heat and Flow: Session One
a. Anisothermal Turbulent Flow Analysis in a Cylindrical Vessel with
Large Scale Recirculation Regions
Shinichi Nakajima (Toshiba Corporation)
b. Three Dimensional Numerical Simulation of Turbulent Flowfield around
Building by using the Module a-Flow for Analyzing Incompressible
Fluid
Shin Saito (Computer Science Department, Asahi Chemical
Industry Co., Ltd.)
c. The Use of Angular in Heating/Cooling Vending Air-Conditioning
Diffuser
Nobuyuki Shibano, S. Horibe (Information System Center,
Matsushita Electric Works, Ltd.)
5. Heat and Flow: Session Two
a. Numerical Analysis for Incompressible Flow by Boundary Fitted
Coordinate Technique in Alpha-Flow
Katsuhiro Nagano (Fuji Research Institute Corporation)
b. Natural Convection in Cylindrical Annuli
Hiroyoshi Ueda (Nuclear Power Research and Development Center,
Tokyo Electric Power Company)
6. Heat and Flow: Session Three
Three Dimensional Numerical Calculation of Flow and Temperature Field
Pest Cooling Tower
Toshiharu Mitsuhashi (Fuji Research Institute Corporation)
Panel Discussion: Numerical Simulation and Verification
7. Overview of Numerical Approach in Fluid Dynamics and its Verification
Ryoichi Takahashi (Faculty of Engineering, Tokyo Institute of
Technology)
8. The Numerical Simulation and the Verification for Chemical Industry
Hitoshi Inoue (Engineering Center, Asahi Chemical Ind. Co., Ltd.)
9. Quick Review of CFD Application in Civil Engineering
Yoshihiro Matagi (Technical Research Laboratory, Takenaka
Corporation)
10. Principle of Verification by Experiments
Hiromichi Nei (Nuclear Engineering Laboratory, Toshiba Corporation)
11. CFD Viewed from the Standpoint of CAE
Akira Mizukami (Research and Development Center, NKK Corporation)
12. Computer Simulation Model of Cigar Smoke Behavior
Nobuyuki Shibano, R. Nakajima, K. Sawada, J. Nomura (Information
System Center, Matsushita Electric Works, Ltd.)
13. Proposition for Organic Fusion between Computational Simulation and
Experiments in Thermal Hydraulic Studies
Ayao Tsuge (Takasago Research and Development Center, Mitsubishi
Heavy Industries, Ltd.)
CFD Applications
14. Some Methods Improving Computational Performance of CFD
Nobuatsu Tanaka (Faculty Engineering, University of Tokyo)
15. Numerical Analysis of Discharge Thermal Plasma
Masaki Suzuki, Y. Sato (Research Laboratory for Nuclear Reactors,
Tokyo Institute of Technology)
16. Numerical and Experimental Study on Air Flow around Buildings -
Comparison of k-e Model, ASM, LES, and Wind Tunnel Test for Flowfield -
around Cube -
Shuzo Murakami, Akashi Mochida, Y. Hayashi (Institute of Industrial
Science, University of Tokyo)
17. A Large-Scale Flow Analysis by a Supercomputer
Masahiro Ikegawa (Mechanical Engineering Research Laboratory,
Hitachi Ltd.)
Simulation Results by Alpha-Flow: Part II
18. Compressible Flow
On the Function and Performance of the Alpha-Flow Module to Analyze
Compressible Flow
Masayuki Kakei (Fuji Research Institute Corporation)
Devasish Biswas (Mechanical Engineering Laboratory, Toshiba
Corporation)
19. Free Surface Problems
Numerical Calculation for Free Surface Flow Problems
Haruo Terasaka (Nuclear Engineering Laboratory, Toshiba Corporation)
Noboru Yamazaki (Fuji Research Institute Corporation)
20. Mass Transport Problems
Simulation of Distribution of Airborne Particles in a Clean Room
Osamu Ukai (System Engineering Dep. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries,
Ltd.)
Toshiharu Mitsuhashi (Fuji Research Institute Corporation)
21. Man Machine Interface
Man Machine Interface of Alpha-Flow
Tohru Nishimura (Fuji Research Institute Corporation)
22. Expert System
AI Module of Alpha-Flow
Kiyoshi Matsubara (Fuji Research Institute Corporation)
--------------END OF REPORT----------------------------------------