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博士的目标是将计算机科学的视角引入他的学科。该提案围绕离散多物理的计算机实现展开。2015年，支持者发表了关于离散多物理的开创性论文：一种可用于复杂系统的计算机模拟的数学建模技术。离散多物理相对于传统的多物理有几个优势。许多对传统多物理来说非常困难或不可能的情况，当用离散多物理处理时就变得容易了。例如，固-液流说明了颗粒的分解和溶解，或者流动说明了相变和凝聚/凝结。鉴于这些特点，离散多物理迅速在学术界站稳脚跟，目前正被世界各地的许多科学家用于各种领域，包括医学、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)。然而，离散多物理的快速发展带来了新的挑战。目前，离散多物理已经通过编写针对特定问题的内部软件来实现。然而，随着对离散多物理的兴趣的增长，超越特定案例的计算机实现并产生可被其他研究小组有效使用的软件的需求变得迫切。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，在跳跃计划中获得更高的技能。从方法论上讲，提议的目标将通过研究目标和学习目标的组合来实现。研究目标是实践活动，Alexiadis博士和Moulitsas博士将共同工作，在名为LAMMPS的开放源码中实现特定的离散多物理特征。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.