An HPC framework for large scale simulations and visualizations of oil spill trajectories

The objective of this work is to build a high performance computing framework for simulating, analyzing and visualizing oil spill trajectories driven by winds and ocean currents. We adopt a particle model for oil and track the trajectories of oil particles using 2D surface currents and winds, which can either be measured directly or estimated with sophisticated coastal storm and ocean circulation models. Our work is built upon the Cactus computational framework. The numerical implementation of the particle model as well as the model coupling modules will become crucial parts of our upcoming full 3D oil spill modeling toolkit. Employing high performance computing and networking, the simulation time can be greatly reduced. Given timely injection of the measurement data, our work can be helpful to predict oil trajectories and facilitate oil clean up, especially after a tropical cyclone.