A computing framework for Discrete Multiphysics

学科跳跃奖支持愿意从 ICT 到其他学科发展新技能和合作的研究人员，反之亦然。在这种情况下，化学工程研究员 Alexiadis 博士旨在将计算机科学的视角带入他的学科。该提案围绕离散多物理场的计算机实现。 2015年，支持者发表了关于离散多物理场的开创性论文：一种可用于复杂系统计算机仿真的数学建模技术。相对于传统多物理场，离散多物理场具有多个优势。许多对于传统多物理场来说非常困难或不可能的情况在使用离散多物理场时变得可以解决。例如，造成颗粒破碎和溶解的固液流，或造成相变和附聚/凝结的流动。鉴于这些特点，离散多物理场很快在学术界确立了自己的地位，目前被世界各地的许多科学家（详见影响摘要）广泛应用于医学、能源、军事应用（与美国海军合作）甚至太空旅行（与 NASA 研究人员合作）等领域。然而，离​​散多物理场的快速发展也带来了新的挑战。目前，离散多物理场已通过针对特定问题编写内部软件来实现。然而，随着对离散多物理场的兴趣不断增长，超越特定案例的计算机实现并生产可供其他研究小组有效使用的软件的需求变得迫切需要。然而，这一目标需要更高的软件工程技能，而 Alexiadis 博士希望在克兰菲尔德大学计算工程科学中心的 Moulitsas 博士和 Filippone 博士的帮助和支持下，在 Hopping 计划中获得这些技能。从方法上讲，该提案的目标将通过研究目标的组合来实现和学习目标。研究目标是实践活动，Alexiadis 博士和 Moulitsas 博士将共同努力，在名为 LAMMPS 的开源代码中实现特定的离散多物理场功能。学习目标是旨在解锁特定知识并为下一个研究目标奠定基础的学习活动。

The Discipline Hopping Award supports researchers willing to develop new skills and collaborations from ICT to other disciplines or vice versa. In this case, Dr Alexiadis, a researcher in Chemical Engineering, aims at bringing a Computer Science perspective to his discipline. The proposal revolves around the computer implementation of Discrete Multiphysics. In 2015, the proponent published the seminal paper on Discrete Multiphysics: a mathematical modelling technique that can be used for the computer simulation of complex systems.Discrete Multiphysics has several advantages with respect to traditional multiphysics. Many cases that are very difficult or impossible for traditional multiphysics become amenable when tackled with Discrete Multiphysics. Examples are solid-liquid flows that account for particle break-up and dissolution, or flows that account for phase-change and agglomeration/clotting. Given these features, Discrete Multiphysics has quickly established itself in the accademic community and currently is been used by many scientist around the world (see Impact Summary for details) on a variety of fields that include medicine, energy, military applications (in collaboration with the US Navy) and even space travel (in collaboration with researchers at NASA).The quick development of Discrete Multiphysics, however, poses new challenges. At the moment, Discrete Multiphysics has been implemented by writing in-house software on a problem-specific basis. However, as the interest in Discrete Multiphysics grows, the need for going beyond a case-specific computer implementation and produce software effectively usable by others research groups becomes a pressing necessity.This goal, however, requires higher skills in software engineering that Dr Alexiadis expects to gain during the Hopping scheme with the help and support of Dr Moulitsas and Dr Filippone at the Centre for Computational Engineering Sciences at Cranfield University.Methodologically, the proposal objectives will be achieved by means of a combination of Research Objectives and Learning Objectives. Research Objectives are hands-on activities where Dr Alexiadis and Dr Moulitsas will work together to implement specific Discrete Multiphysics features in an Open Source code called LAMMPS. Learning Objectives are learning activities designed to unlock specific knowledge and prepare the ground for the next Research Objectives.