New Industry Outreach at TACC

Melyssa FratkinIndustrial Programs Director

April 6, 2011

Why Industrial Outreach?

• Simple economics – budgets are tight all over

• Industry has research needs

• Share knowledge and information

• Stretch to new research areas, applications

• Support economic development in Texas

The STAR Program

• Membership for information/knowledge sharing– Training in HPC methods, techniques

– Recruiting trained workforce

– Workshops, reports, publications

• Sponsored research projects using TACC systems, support, expertise– HPC

– Visualization

– Data Mining and Analysis

Missing Middle @ TACC• TACC is focusing on the “missing middle” in the

energy industry – Over 3000 small- to mid-sized independent oil & gas

companies in Texas!

• Large energy companies are heavy users of HPC– Using their own systems, or doing research at TACC

• What could these smaller companies do if they had more HPC experience, knowledge, support?– More accuracy in drilling; get more from each well

Potential Research Projects

• Hydraulic fracturing, or ‘fracing’: improved modeling & simulation of different types of proppants; determining impact of proppants on the area around the drill site.

– Groundwater infiltration; earthquakes in AL, WV

• Accuracy of software simulations: Compare current drilling/3D reservoir models to real-world results.

• Testing ISV software on larger systems

– Software licensing issues

Missing Middle @ TACC

• Training in modeling & simulation

• Offer a web portal (a la EWI) for ‘fracing’ simulations and reservoir modeling – Need expertise of modelers and geologists to create

portal

– Modeled on existing software; easy to use

• Challenge: Reservoir data is proprietary and very valuable!

Other HPC Centers

• TACC is not the only academic HPC Center in Texas

• Other centers across the US, also looking to collaborate

• Budgets are tight all over

• Federal budget worries, esp for NSF, DOE, NIH – Freshman class in Congress

– Continuing budget resolutions

CASC

• Coalition for Academic Scientific Computation

• Association of centers at universities & national labs

• 66 centers in 35 states (plus DC)

• www.casc.org

Thanks!

Questions – about TACC or CASC

Melyssa Fratkin

mfratkin@tacc.utexas.edu

512-471-9961