00:00 *Archive
footage Tacoma Narrows bridge buckling
Severn
bridge central suspension section
Exteriors
of Cripps Computing Centre
Super
computer
Dr
Nigel Wright at computer
Reverse
of above
Tilt
up keyboard to monitor
Close
up on monitor showing 3D graphic.
* Tacoma Bridge footage must be
credited to ‘The Camera Shop and Ed Elliott in
Tacoma’.
Guide Commentary: When the
Tacoma Narrows bridge buckled and broke up in high winds in 1940
the world was stunned, and many certainties of civil engineering
were overturned.
While there have been many advances in
predicting the impact of wind turbulence on suspension bridges
since then, there has always been an element of guesswork until a
bridge was actually completed. Even modern suspension bridges may
still need to be closed for safety in high winds.
Now a new Super Computer at the University of
Nottingham, one of the most powerful in Europe, is helping to
reduce that element of guesswork still further.
The university’s high performance
computing GRID is roughly equivalent to a 1000 PCs working together
and can provide three million, million or three terra flops of
computational power. That massive number crunching ability is
now being used by four major projects at the University, of which
the study of the effect of wind turbulence on bridges is
one.
Dr Nigel Wright, reader in environmental fluid
mechanics is leading the team studying both the impact of wind
turbulence on bridges and the way bridges themselves react to it,
using 3D computer modelling techniques to assess the danger of wind
turbulence
01:10 SOT Dr Nigel Wright, Reader
Environmental Fluid Mechanics, University
of Nottingham - "It is
fairly dangerous. The first consequence is that there are certain
times in the year when the bridge will have to shut and
that’s not a big safety problem because we shut so
that’s not such a big safety problem because we shut it when
it becomes unsafe. But if you end up having to shut that bridge for
three days at a busy time of year then everyone’s got to go
round it and find another route and it is a problem for example on
the Severn bridge down in the south west if the wind’s
blowing there then everyone’s got to drive all the way round
the estuary to get to Wales or get back to England. So
there’s a clear problem just in terms of the usability of a
bridge if it has to be shut."
01:45 Tilt
down on super computer.
Guide Commentary: Until
recently their studies were limited by the power of the computers
they were using, but now equipped with their new high performance
computing grid (super computer) they will be able to achieve far
more.
01:54 SOT Dr Nigel Wright
- "With the new computer we can run faster cases,
we can run cases where we can calculate far more eddies and far
more detail the force within it. But the other thing we can do is
we can look at many different set ups in bridge design so you can
see what happens when you change this parameter and what happens if
you change another parameter and we can test many different values
of that parameter all at the same time to come up with a detailed
design of what that is going to look like."
02:24 3D
computer graphic of turbulence on bridge
Technician
on super computer
Guide Commentary: As well as
turbulence modelling, the Super Computer is allowing the
University’s researchers to make new strides in other areas
like Pharmacy, Chemistry, Physics and Astronomy.
02:34 SOT Dr Frazer Pearce,
Lecturer in Physics and Astronomy,
University of Nottingham
- "The main reason this computer is so
significant is because the shear size, it’s going to be the
second largest computational facility in Northern Europe used by
academics, the only larger one in the UK is in Manchester and this
will allow us for instance myself rather than take a year to do a
piece of research I’ll be able to complete it over
night.’
02:57 Pull
out on Super Computer
Guide Commentary: The sheer
processing power of this Super Computer will introduce a new level
of high quality research throughout the University and they want to
bring in other groups to benefit from its capabilities
too
03:07 SOT Dr Frazer Pearce
- "It’s going to allow researchers here at
the university to attack grand challenge problems in science for
instance within the astronomy department we’re trying to work
out how the universe formed and evolved which is clearly a big
problem and we’ve got a problem in chemistry where they were
trying to solve ways of cleaning up the mess we’ve made of
our environment and there are several other projects going on here
at the university."
03:28 3D
graphic on bridge turbulence
Wide
on Severn Bridge centre suspension.
Wide
on Super Computer.
Guide Commentary: So The
University of Nottingham’s Super Computer will not only help
to build safer bridges, it may in time be helping to unravel the
secrets of the Universe itself.
End of cut:
03:37
03:42 Additional
footage:
Various
shots of people on computers
Technician
looking at Super Computer
04:08
End
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