Exascale computing project moves the needle in earthquake risk assessment

As part of the US Department of Energy’s Exascale Computing Project (ECP), the Earthquake Simulation Application Development Team (EQSIM) is creating a computational and workflow toolkit to assess earthquake and risk hazards that go beyond traditional experience-based technologies that draw on historical earthquake data. With the help of software from ECP’s software technology suite, the EQSIM team is working to give scientists and engineers the ability to simulate comprehensive earthquake processes. This means understanding what happens from faults rupture initiation (i.e. earthquake initiation) to modeling of surface earth movements (i.e. earthquake risk) to provide engineers with accurate information that they can use to assess the response of the infrastructure and assess the risks it may be exposed to. People and property. The ultimate goal of EQSIM is to remove computational limitations that currently prevent understanding of earthquake phenomena and practical assessments of seismic hazards and hazards.

The conventional experiment-based ground motion estimates do not capture site specificity

Conventional seismic risk assessments and risk assessments for critical infrastructure have relied on experience-based methods that use the ground movements of historical earthquakes from many different locations to estimate future ground vibration at a particular location of interest, such as a bridge or building. Because the ground motions of a given location are strongly influenced by the physics of specific earthquake processes – including the mechanics of fault rupture and seismic wave propagation across the Earth (a complex heterogeneous medium) – much of the complexity of Earth’s vibration has been lost. Unfortunately, the homogeneity of many disparate records in conventional experiment-based estimates cannot fully capture the complex location specificity of the Earth’s motion, including frequency, amplitude, and direction.

Advances in computing power give scientists the power to assess infrastructure risks

Historically, limitations on available computing power have meant that scientists and engineers who run earthquake simulations at the regional level can only model ground vibrations at about 1 or 2 Hz, or one or two cycles per second. Although much progress has been made, it has not been sufficient because critical infrastructure, such as buildings, bridges, and power system infrastructure can be seriously affected by high-frequency vibrations of up to 5 or 10 Hz. The mismatch between current computational capacity and what is required to perform high-fidelity simulations has limited the ability of scientists to simulate ground movements at the frequencies relevant to structures, thus assessing the risks associated with building collapse and the economic consequences of major infrastructure damage, such as bridges failure.

Leading performance increase

The focused effort of the EQSIM team addressed this computational barrier and is now able to model ground motion up to 10 Hz. Along with other businesses, the transfer effort to new GPU-based supercomputers has been essential in offering this additional computational power. Initial work with the Summit supercomputer was carried out at Oak Ridge National Laboratory with the help of the software technology team at ECP supporting RAJA performance portability libraries and other work related to preparing for the effective implementation of science programs on the emerging US Department of Energy exaflop platforms in the 2022 timeframe.

To appreciate this achievement, it is necessary to understand that the computational effort to perform the simulation of ground motion varies from frequency to fourth force. Hence, doubling the frequency resolution requires 16 times more computational effort.

Figure 1 illustrates the increased capacity for damage assessment for a broad class of infrastructure. In addition to running high-resolution models to capture higher frequency resolutions, it is important to be able to quickly run correlated models so that the entire area of ​​the earthquake parameters (such as the different ways in which a given error can explode) can be appropriately calculated.

Figure 1. The EQSIM challenge to regional simulation at frequencies affecting a wide range of infrastructure. (Source: https://ecpannualmeeting.com/assets/overview/sessions/ECP2020McCallenFinal-compressed.pdf.)

EQSIM demonstrates the value of Exascale supercomputers

Significant growth in computational power of 16 x ground level width provides the tremendous value of XaScale supercomputers. Current drive-class machines provide an existing platform that serves as a starting point for demonstrating what is possible in these future machines. These initial efforts give scientists important insight into what is needed to accommodate the growth of challenging but traceable physics-based simulation runtime as Excelscale systems become available. It also gives them insight into any limitations in current models (for example, limitations in models, grid size, and network resolution) that need to be addressed to deliver optimal performance and actionable results.

The end result will save lives and avoid the dire economic consequences

These efforts, as evidenced by the EQSIM, will save lives and the ability to assess and plan to avoid catastrophic failure of the infrastructure. In this case, the existing infrastructure can be strengthened and policies adjusted for building new buildings in earthquake areas.

The value proposition of EQSIM is great, and historical failures abound. Examples include the collapse of the double-decker Cypress Street Bridge off Interstate 880 in West Oakland during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in California. The failure of a 1.25-mile (2.0 km) section of the bridge killed 42 people, injured many more, and caused damage to nearly $ 11.6-12.4 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars. Likewise, the 1994 Northridge earthquake killed 60 people, injured more than 9,000, and caused approximately $ 22 to $ 86 billion in 2014 in inflation-adjusted dollars, making it one of the costliest natural disasters in US history. The Northridge earthquake also damaged parts of many major roads and highways, including Interstate 10 over La Cienega Street, and Interstate 5 interchanges with California State Route 14 and 118 and Interstate 210 were closed due to structural failure or collapse. All these previous events affected transportation and economies of the region long after the earthquake. Figure 2 illustrates the goal of the ExcelSIM for EQSIM to be able to rapidly implement high-fidelity simulations within an algorithmic ecosystem that delivers relevant results.

Figure 2. The goal of EQSIM exascale is to be able to quickly implement high-fidelity simulations within a computational ecosystem that delivers relevant results. (Source: https://ecpannualmeeting.com/assets/overview/sessions/ECP2020McCallenFinal-compressed.pdf.)

EQSIM integrates extraordinary physics into an end-to-end workflow

The EQSIM team focused on three areas to provide a comprehensive workflow that encompasses the relevant physics and performance requirements needed to give scientists the information they need to assess risk and hopefully avert a disaster.

David MacLean – a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Nevada, Reno and chief scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory – noted in his interview with Scott Gibson, a communications specialist at ECP, that the team works in three areas. (The Scott interview is available in text and podcast form.)

The EQSIM team is working to improve the algorithms and complexity of existing codes to simulate ground motion. The team is working with the SW4 code that was originally developed and optimized at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The team translates and converts codes into first-class GPU-based supercomputers, such as Summit. Currently, the team has achieved 10 Hz simulations, and the seismic reflection capabilities being developed under the EQSIM will provide a tool to optimize the geological models needed to support these high-frequency simulations. The team rigidly connects the resulting ground movements with detailed infrastructure models including paired soil structure systems, and this linkage between ground movement and infrastructure is extremely important because engineers can see how complex three-dimensional incident waves from the collision of ground motion and interaction with the infrastructure in Previously, engineers had to make simple assumptions about how these accident waves would arise, which necessarily limited the accuracy of their risk assessments using traditional, experience-based techniques.

The richness of the information provided by the complete EQSIM workflow on ground movement distribution and infrastructure risk distribution is shown in Figure 3. The workflow includes several well-established and respected codes, including SW4, Class IV, 3D seismic wave propagation model; NEVADA, a finite nonlinear displacement program for building earthquake response; And OPENSEES, which is a nonlinear finite element program for the coupled interaction of soil structure.

Figure 3. EQSIM provides a framework for simulating the regional range from fault to architecture – regional domain for the San Francisco Bay Area To test the performance of EQSIM, the Hayward error appears along the eastern edge of the San Francisco Bay. (Source: https://ecpannualmeeting.com/assets/overview/sessions/ECP2020McCallenFinal-compressed.pdf.)

Evaluate the results

To evaluate simulations at the regional level and measure the computational progress of application development and performance targets for this project, the team created a detailed, representative scale model for the San Francisco Bay Area (SFBA), as shown in Figure 3.

This model includes all necessary geophysical modeling features (for example, 3D geology, land surface topography, material attenuation, non-reflective boundaries, fault rupture models). For a 10 Hz simulation, the arithmetic field includes up to 300 billion mesh points in the finite difference domain for models containing accurate representations of soft sedimentary soils close to the surface. The SFBA Model provides a comprehensive basis for testing and evaluating advanced physics algorithms and computational applications. The Hayward Fault, which runs along the eastern side of San Francisco Bay and the central focus of testing the EQSIM performance (shown by a line parallel to San Francisco Bay in Figure 3), resulted in a major earthquake every 150 years on average and another occurring in the year 1868, which made the simulation of this area and this error of particular societal significance.

MacLean notes that the transition to the Summit supercomputer and the accompanying software development efforts were “greatly empowering” because they increased the EQSIM (FOM) merit number from a factor of 66 to 189. FOM is a quantitative measure of the scientific work rate of an application. As the code improves to run faster, the FOM increases. As shown in Figure 4, the one-year jump between FY 2019 and FY20 is massive.

Figure 4. Developments in EQSIM FOM; Standardized Performance Tests from A to F. (Source: https://www.exascaleproject.org/research-project/eqsim.)

Summary

The EQSIM project demonstrates the value of supercomputers with a maximum scale (for example, Excel). When combined with equally sophisticated software, such computational power can clearly deliver the performance scientists and engineers need to solve related social problems that can save lives and prevent future economic hardship.

Rob Farber is a global technology consultant and author with a broad background in HPC and in machine learning technology development that he applies in national laboratories and commercial organizations. Rob can be reached at [email protected]

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