About Our Homepage Images

Computer power enables scientists to observe data in previously unimaginable ways. These images are examples of computer visualization from across a range of models and experiments. They were chosen from the pages of DEIXIS, the journal of the Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship, and from Web pages of the national laboratories that host fellows for practicums. The Krell Institute gratefully acknowledges the researchers who created these images and gave permission for their use.

Nanotechnology Simple Piston –
In this close-up of a model depicting a nanotechnology simple piston, thousands of times thinner than a hair, a “buckyball” of carbon atoms interrupts the flow of helium atoms in a graphite nanotube. Such atomic-scale machines will be able to move and sort substances molecule by molecule. The images show a variety of fluid flow features that are not readily apparent from raw computer data. The image was provided by Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers Don W. Noid, Bobby G. Sumpter and Robert Tuzun.

Molecular Mixing –
This image, taken from a combustion simulation created by Sandia National Laboratory researchers, shows a planar CO/H2 jet flame, colored by the rate of molecular mixing. Mixing is critical for determining the interaction between reaction and diffusion in a flame. The visualization accompanied a DEIXIS article and was created using a volume-rendering application written by Hongfeng Yu, Hiroshi Akiba and Kwan-Liu Ma of the University of California, Davis.

Atomic Nuclei –
Argonne National Laboratory physicists Steven Pieper and Bob Wiringa use the lab’s supercomputers to calculate the forces that bind nucleons — protons and neutrons — to form atomic nuclei. These images represent different angular momentum states of the deuteron, a two-body hydrogen nucleus (deuterium) comprising one proton and one neutron.

Airflow Over M-6 Wing –
In this visualization of air flow over an M-6 wing, the two flat structures are cutting planes, color mapped to the air pressure values along them. The "cut-out" region near the image center is the wing’s physical space. Since there are no measurements within the wing itself that area is empty. The smooth surfaces on either side of the wing represent iso-contours of the mach data. On the surface of these contours the mach values are all equal. Inside the surface the mach values are higher; outside they are lower. Data courtesy of Lois Curfman McInnes at Argonne National Laboratory.

Local Weather Models –
Argonne computer scientists run detailed local weather models on a large-scale testbed computer cluster. This shows two views of a 20-kilometer-resolution simulation of the "Perfect Storm" that hit the North Atlantic in October 1991 and inspired a book and movie. The figure above depicts atmospheric moisture. The figure below shows rainfall and cloud water.