MRI: Acquisition of a Linux Cluster to Fulfill High Performance Computing Needs Within Engineering and Science

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Proposal No. CTS-0619641Principal Investigator: Patrick A. Tebbe, Minnesota State University, MankatoMRI: Acquisition of a Linux Cluster to Fulfill High Performance Computing Needs Within Engineering and Science This Major Research Instrumentation grant will improve the computational infrastructure of the Departments of Mechanical and Civil Engineering (MECE) and Computer and Information Science (CIS), at Minnesota State University Mankato (MSU). A Linux computer cluster will be acquired with the memory and architecture properties required to facilitate ongoing research, course, and training activities. Engineering software that has been optimized for use on a distributed processor system is also requested to allow the system to be fully utilized for engineering research and education. The equipment and software will directly support three research projects with critical computational needs: 1) Study of Transient and Three-dimensional Effects in Physical Vapor Transport, 2) Linguistic Features for Speech Recognition, and 3) Statistical Disclosure Assessment. Each of these topics is currently restricted by a lack of high performance computing (HPC) infrastructure. The overarching broad impact of this project will be to increase high-performance computing in the research and educational experiences of engineering and science students and enhance the research potential of faculty at MSU. Acquisition of the resources described will enable these and future research projects to move forward while aiding the institution in meeting its educational goals. The equipment will be used in numerous undergraduate and graduate courses in both departments. In addition, a new cross-disciplinary Seminar in High Performance Computing course will be created based on these research topics and this equipment. Through this seminar and the numerous affected courses, undergraduate and graduate students will be exposed to high performance computing and trained for its use in research. Outreach and training of other campus faculty will be conducted in order to increase the number of potential research and classroom users of the system. MSU is a non-Ph.D. granting institution and the recent recipient of a $2 million grant from the State of Minnesota to establish a Center of Excellence in Manufacturing and Engineering. The Center partners MSU with 5 technical or community colleges and one state Higher Education District. With the objectives of building partnerships with K-12 and industry, a unique opportunity exists to leverage this proposal with the Center's work. In addition, numerous external entities including several universities, an international university, NASA, and a small company will be involved as research collaborators with these projects.