CAREER: Rheology of Materials of Earth's Mantle: High-end Computational/Visualization Research and Education

职业：地幔材料流变学：高端计算/可视化研究和教育

• 批准号: 0347204
• 负责人: Bijaya Karki
• 金额: $ 46.51万
• 依托单位: Louisiana State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2004
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2004-06-01 至 2009-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0347204&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Rheology; Materials; Earth; Mantle

This proposal aims to systematically apply ideas and techniques of computer and materials sciences to challenging problems in the theoretical investigation of fundamental issues of Earth materials. One such issue is to understand the rheological properties of the component materials of Earth's mantle at geophysically relevant pressure and temperature conditions that are still experimentally inaccessible. Rheology is a key factor, which has strong influence on the complicated mantle dynamics implied by seismological observations and other sources. Large-scale atomistic simulations will be performed on massively parallel machines using a combination of first-principles quantum mechanical (QM), classical molecular dynamics (MD) and hybrid QM/MD approaches. The simulations will predict several crucial rheology-related properties and processes in major silicate and oxide mantle minerals, including point defects, dislocations and associated long-range mechanical phenomena, and deformation of polycrystalline minerals under anisotropic stresses. The resulting massive multivariate datasets will be visualized in an immersive and interactive environment to gain insight into complex mechanical behavior of minerals. The aforementioned interdisciplinary research activities will be integrated into teaching/learning/training activities. They include training a new generation of students with expertise in computational and Earth materials sciences (through a dual-degree graduate program in computer and geosciences), developing an Access Grid-based remote teaching/learning environment (encompassing minority institutions in Louisiana) and organizing computational science workshop for underrepresented groups and Mardi Gras conference that have previously been organized at Louisiana State University (LSU). The successful execution of these activities will have broad substantive involvement of students and faculty including those from underrepresented groups in research and education at the interface of geopysics and information technology. The project will exploit the world-class 1024-processor Linux cluster, Immersadesk virtual reality, and Access Grid facilities recently acquired by LSU. --

这项建议旨在系统地将计算机和材料科学的思想和技术应用于地球材料基本问题的理论研究中的挑战性问题。其中一个问题是了解地幔组成物质在地球物理相关的压力和温度条件下的流变性，这些条件在实验上仍然无法获得。流变学是一个关键因素，它对地震观测和其他来源所隐含的复杂的地幔动力学有很大的影响。大规模原子模拟将在大规模并行机上使用第一原理量子力学(QM)、经典分子动力学(MD)和QM/MD混合方法进行。这些模拟将预测主要硅酸盐和氧化物地幔矿物中与流变学相关的几个关键性质和过程，包括点缺陷、位错和相关的长期力学现象，以及各向异性应力下多晶矿物的变形。由此产生的海量多变量数据集将在身临其境的交互环境中可视化，以深入了解矿物的复杂机械行为。上述跨学科研究活动将纳入教/学/培训活动。这些措施包括培训新一代具有计算和地球材料科学专业知识的学生(通过计算机和地球科学双学位研究生课程)，开发基于Access网格的远程教学/学习环境(包括路易斯安那州的少数族裔机构)，为代表不足的群体组织计算科学研讨会，以及以前在路易斯安那州立大学(LSU)组织的狂欢节会议。成功地开展这些活动将使学生和教职员工广泛实质性地参与地球物理学和信息技术领域的研究和教育，其中包括来自代表性不足群体的学生和教员。该项目将利用路易斯安那州立大学最近收购的世界级1024处理器Linux集群、Immersadesk虚拟现实和Access Grid设施。--