ICALEPCS2013 - List of Keywords (simulation)

Paper	Title	Other Keywords	Page
MOPPC075	A Monte Carlo Simulation Approach to the Reliability Modeling of the Beam Permit System of Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at BNL	distributed, collider, kicker, electron	265
	P. Chitnis, T.G. Robertazzi Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York, USA K.A. Brown BNL, Upton, Long Island, New York, USA
	Funding: Work supported by Brookhaven Science Associates, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC02-98CH10886 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The RHIC Beam Permit System (BPS) monitors the health of RHIC subsystems and takes active decisions regarding beam-abort and magnet power dump, upon a subsystem fault. The reliability of BPS directly impacts the RHIC downtime, and hence its availability. This work assesses the probability of BPS failures that could lead to substantial downtime. A fail-safe condition imparts downtime to restart the machine, while a failure to respond to an actual fault can cause potential machine damage and impose significant downtime. This paper illustrates a modular multistate reliability model of the BPS, with modules having exponential lifetime distributions. The model is based on the Competing Risks Theory with Crude Lifetimes, where multiple failure modes compete against each other to cause a final failure, and simultaneously influence each other. It is also dynamic in nature as the number of modules varies based on the fault trigger location. The model is implemented as a Monte Carlo simulation in Java, and analytically validated. The eRHIC BPS will be an extension of RHIC BPS. This analysis will facilitate building a knowledge base rendering intelligent decision support for eRHIC BPS design.
	Poster MOPPC075 [0.985 MB]

MOPPC076	Quantitative Fault Tree Analysis of the Beam Permit System Elements of Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at BNL	operation, kicker, collider, interface	269
	P. Chitnis, T.G. Robertazzi Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York, USA K.A. Brown, C. Theisen BNL, Upton, Long Island, New York, USA
	Funding: Work supported by Brookhaven Science Associates, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC02-98CH10886 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The RHIC Beam Permit System (BPS) plays a key role in safeguarding against the anomalies developing in the collider during a run. The BPS collects RHIC subsystem statuses to allow the beam entry and its existence in the machine. The building blocks of BPS are Permit Module (PM) and Abort Kicker Module (AKM), which incorporate various electronic boards based on VME specification. This paper presents a quantitative Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) of the PM and AKM, yielding the hazard rates of three top failures that are potential enough to cause a significant downtime of the machine. The FTA helps tracing down the top failure of the module to a component level failure (such as an IC or resistor). The fault trees are constructed for all module variants and are probabilistically evaluated using an analytical solution approach. The component failure rates are calculated using manufacturer datasheets and MIL-HDBK-217F. The apportionment of failure modes for components is calculated using FMD-97. The aim of this work is to understand the importance of individual components of the RHIC BPS regarding its reliable operation, and evaluate their impact on the operation of BPS.
	Poster MOPPC076 [0.626 MB]

MOPPC082	Automated Verification Environment for TwinCAT PLC Programs	PLC, interface, hardware, undulator	288
	A. Beckmann XFEL. EU, Hamburg, Germany
	The European XFEL will have three undulator systems SASE1, SASE2, and SASE3 to produce extremely brilliant, ultra-short pulses of x-rays with wavelengths down to 0.1 nm. The undulator gap is adjustable in order to vary photon beam energy. The corresponding motion control is implemented with industrial PCs running Beckhoff TwinCAT Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs). So far, the functionality of the PLC programs has been verified on system level with the final hardware. This is a time-consuming manual task, but may also damage the hardware in case of severe program failures. To improve the verification process of PLC programs, a test environment with simulated hardware has been set up. It uses a virtual machine to run the PLC program together with a verification program that simulates the behavior of the hardware. Test execution and result checking is automated with the help of scripts, which communicate with the verification program to stimulate the PLC program. Thus, functional verification of PLC programs is reduced to running a set of scripts, without the need to connect to real hardware and without manual effort.
	Poster MOPPC082 [0.226 MB]

MOPPC152	Accelerator Lattice and Model Services	database, lattice, GUI, EPICS	464
	C.P. Chu FRIB, East Lansing, Michigan, USA F.Q. Guo, H.H. Lv, C.H. Wang, Z. Zhao IHEP, Beijing, People's Republic of China G. Shen BNL, Upton, Long Island, New York, USA
	Funding: This work is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science under Cooperative Agreement DE-SC0000661, and the Chinese Spallation Neutron Source Project. Physics model based beam tuning applications are essential for complex accelerators. Traditionally, such applications acquire lattice data directly from a persistent data source and then carry out model computation within the applications. However, this approach often suffers from poor performance and modeling tool limitation. A better architecture is to offload heavy database query and model computation from the application instances. A database has been designed for hosting lattice and physics modeling data while a set of web based services then provide lattice and model data for the beam tuning applications to consume. Preliminary lattice and model services are based on standard J2EE Glassfish platform with MySQL database as backend data storage. Such lattice and model services can greatly improve the performance and reliability of physics applications.
	Poster MOPPC152 [0.312 MB]

TUPPC082	DSP Design Using System Generator	FPGA, hardware, booster, interface	770
	J.M. Koch ESRF, Grenoble, France
	When designing a real time control system, a fast data transfer between the different pieces of hardware must be guaranteed since synchronization and determinism have to be respected. One efficient solution to cope with these constraints is to embed the data collection, the signal-processing and the driving of the acting devices in FPGAs. Although this solution imposes that the whole design is being developed for an FPGA, in pure hardware, it is possible to open the part dedicated to the signal processing to non HDL (Hardware Description Language) specialists; the choice has been made here to develop this part under System Generator, in Simulink. Another challenge in such system design is the integration of real time models on already pre-configured hardware platforms. This paper describes with few examples how to interface such hardware with HDL System Generator control systems blocks. The advantages of Simulink for the simulation phase of the design as well as the possibility to introduce models dedicated to the tests are also presented.
	Poster TUPPC082 [0.924 MB]

THPPC076	Re-Engineering Control Systems using Automatic Generation Tools and Process Simulation: the LHC Water Cooling Case	controls, PLC, operation, interlocks	1242
	W. Booth, E.B. Blanco Vinuela, B. Bradu, L. Gomez Palacin, M. Quilichini, D. Willeman CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
	This paper presents the approach used at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) for the re-engineering of the control systems for the water cooling systems of the LHC (Large Hadron Collider). Due to a very short, and therefore restrictive, intervention time for these control systems, each PLC had to be completely commissioned in only two weeks. To achieve this challenge, automatic generation tools were used with the CERN control framework UNICOS (Unified Industrial Control System) to produce the PLC code. Moreover, process dynamic models using the simulation software EcosimPro were developed to carry out the ‘virtual’ commissioning of the new control systems for the most critical processes thus minimizing the real commissioning time on site. The re-engineering concerns around 20 PLCs managing 11000 Inputs/Outputs all around the LHC. These cooling systems are composed of cooling towers, chilled water production units and water distribution systems.
	Poster THPPC076 [4.046 MB]

THPPC077	A Fuzzy-Oriented Solution for Automatic Distribution of Limited Resources According to Priority Lists	controls, cryogenics, superconducting-magnet, operation	1246
	M. Pezzetti, V. Inglese, A. Tovar CERN, Geneva, Switzerland M.M. Almeida UFMG, Belo Horizonte, Brazil H. Coppier ESIEE, Amiens, France
	This paper proposes a solution for resources allocation when limited resources supply several clients in parallel. The lack of a suitable limitation mechanism in the supply system can lead to the depletion of the resources if the total demand exceeds the availability. To avoid this situation, an algorithm for priority handling which relies on the Fuzzy Systems Theory is used. The Fuzzy approach, as a problem-solving technique, is robust with respect to model and parameter uncertainties and is well-adapted to systems whose mathematical formulation is difficult or impossible to obtain. The aim of the algorithm is to grant a fair allocation if the resources availability is sufficient for all the clients, or, in case of excess of demand, on the basis of priority lists, to assure enough resources only to the high priority clients in order to allow the completion of the high priority tasks. Besides the general algorithm, this paper describes the Fuzzy approach applied to a cryogenic test facility at CERN. Simulation tools are employed to validate the proposed algorithm and to characterize its performance.

THPPC116	Temperature Precise Control in a Large Scale Helium Refrigerator	controls, cryogenics, operation, experiment	1331
	Wu,J.H. wu, Q. Li, W. Pan TIPC, BeiJing, People's Republic of China
	Precise control of operating load temperature is a key requirement for application of a large scale helium refrigerator. Strict control logic and time sequence are necessary in the process related to main components including a fine load, turbine expanders and compressors. However control process sequence may become disordered due to improper PID parameter settings and logic equations and causes temperature oscillation, load augmentation or protection of the compressors and cryogenic valve function failure etc. Combination of experimental studies and simulation models, effect of PID parameters adjustment on the control process is present in detail. The methods and rules of general parameter settings are revealed and the suitable control logic equations are derived for temperature stabilization.
	Poster THPPC116 [0.584 MB]

THPPC117	A Control Strategy for Highly Regulated Magnet Power Supplies Using a LQR Approach	controls, power-supply, damping, proton	1334
	S. Srivastava, Y. Kumar, A. Misra, V.S. Pandit, S. Sahoo, S.K. Thakur VECC, Kolkata, India
	A linear quadratic regulator (LQR) based proportional-Integrator-derivative (PID) controller is proposed for the SMPS based magnet power supply of the high current proton injector operational at VECC. The state weighting matrices ‘Q’ of the LQR based controller is derived analytically using guaranteed dominant pole placement approach with desired ‘ζ’ (maximum overshoot) and ‘ω’(rise time). The uniqueness of this scheme is that the controller gives the desired closed loop response with minimum control effort, hence avoiding the actuator saturation by utilizing both optimum behavior of LQR technique and simplicity of the conventional PID controller. The controller and power supply parameter perturbations is studied along with the load disturbance to verify the robustness of proposed control mechanism.

THPPC137	Time Domain Simulation Software of the APS Storage Ring Orbit Real-time Feedback System	feedback, software, FPGA, storage-ring	1373
	H. Shang, J. Carwardine, G. Decker, L. Emery, F. Lenkszus, N. Sereno, S. Xu ANL, Argonne, USA
	The APS storage ring real-time feedback (RTFB) system will be upgraded as part of the APS Upgrade project. The time domain simulation software is implemented to find the best parameters of correctors and evaluate the performance of different system configurations. The software includes two parts: the corrector noise model generator and the RTFB simulation. The corrector noise model generates the corrector noise data that are the input for the RTFB simulation. The corrector noise data are generated from the measured APS BPM turn-by-turn noise data, so that simulation actually reproduces the real machine. This paper introduces the algorithm and high-level software development of the corrector noise model generator and the RTFB simulation. Work supported by U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357.
	Poster THPPC137 [0.445 MB]

THCOCB02	The Role of Data Driven Models in Optimizing the Operation of the National Ignition Facility	laser, target, experiment, operation	1426
	K.P. McCandless, J.-M.G. Di Nicola, S.N. Dixit, E. Feigenbaum, R.K. House, K.S. Jancaitis, K.N. LaFortune, B.J. MacGowan, C.D. Orth, R.A. Sacks, M.J. Shaw, C.C. Widmayer, S.T. Yang LLNL, Livermore, California, USA
	Funding: * This work performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344. #LLNL-ABS-633233 The Virtual Beam Line (VBL) code is essential to operate, maintain and validate the design of laser components to meet the performance goals at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility (NIF). The NIF relies upon the Laser Performance Operations Model (LPOM), whose physics engine is the Virtual Beam Line (VBL) code, to automate the setup of the laser by simulating the laser energetics of the as-built system. VBL simulates paraxial beam propagation, amplification, aberration and modulation, nonlinear self-focusing and focal behavior. Each of the NIF’s 192 beam lines are modeled in parallel on the LPOM Linux compute cluster during shot setup and validation. NIF achieved a record 1.8 MJ shot in July 2012, and LPOM (with VBL) was key to achieving the requested pulse shape. We will discuss some examples of how the VBL physics code is used to model the laser phenomena and operate the NIF laser system.
	Slides THCOCB02 [4.589 MB]

Paper

Title

Other Keywords

Page

A Monte Carlo Simulation Approach to the Reliability Modeling of the Beam Permit System of Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at BNL

distributed, collider, kicker, electron

265

P. Chitnis, T.G. Robertazzi
Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York, USA
K.A. Brown
BNL, Upton, Long Island, New York, USA

Funding: Work supported by Brookhaven Science Associates, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC02-98CH10886 with the U.S. Department of Energy.
The RHIC Beam Permit System (BPS) monitors the health of RHIC subsystems and takes active decisions regarding beam-abort and magnet power dump, upon a subsystem fault. The reliability of BPS directly impacts the RHIC downtime, and hence its availability. This work assesses the probability of BPS failures that could lead to substantial downtime. A fail-safe condition imparts downtime to restart the machine, while a failure to respond to an actual fault can cause potential machine damage and impose significant downtime. This paper illustrates a modular multistate reliability model of the BPS, with modules having exponential lifetime distributions. The model is based on the Competing Risks Theory with Crude Lifetimes, where multiple failure modes compete against each other to cause a final failure, and simultaneously influence each other. It is also dynamic in nature as the number of modules varies based on the fault trigger location. The model is implemented as a Monte Carlo simulation in Java, and analytically validated. The eRHIC BPS will be an extension of RHIC BPS. This analysis will facilitate building a knowledge base rendering intelligent decision support for eRHIC BPS design.

Poster MOPPC075 [0.985 MB]

MOPPC076

Quantitative Fault Tree Analysis of the Beam Permit System Elements of Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at BNL

operation, kicker, collider, interface

269

P. Chitnis, T.G. Robertazzi
Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York, USA
K.A. Brown, C. Theisen
BNL, Upton, Long Island, New York, USA

Funding: Work supported by Brookhaven Science Associates, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC02-98CH10886 with the U.S. Department of Energy.
The RHIC Beam Permit System (BPS) plays a key role in safeguarding against the anomalies developing in the collider during a run. The BPS collects RHIC subsystem statuses to allow the beam entry and its existence in the machine. The building blocks of BPS are Permit Module (PM) and Abort Kicker Module (AKM), which incorporate various electronic boards based on VME specification. This paper presents a quantitative Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) of the PM and AKM, yielding the hazard rates of three top failures that are potential enough to cause a significant downtime of the machine. The FTA helps tracing down the top failure of the module to a component level failure (such as an IC or resistor). The fault trees are constructed for all module variants and are probabilistically evaluated using an analytical solution approach. The component failure rates are calculated using manufacturer datasheets and MIL-HDBK-217F. The apportionment of failure modes for components is calculated using FMD-97. The aim of this work is to understand the importance of individual components of the RHIC BPS regarding its reliable operation, and evaluate their impact on the operation of BPS.

Poster MOPPC076 [0.626 MB]

MOPPC082

Automated Verification Environment for TwinCAT PLC Programs

PLC, interface, hardware, undulator

288

A. Beckmann
XFEL. EU, Hamburg, Germany

The European XFEL will have three undulator systems SASE1, SASE2, and SASE3 to produce extremely brilliant, ultra-short pulses of x-rays with wavelengths down to 0.1 nm. The undulator gap is adjustable in order to vary photon beam energy. The corresponding motion control is implemented with industrial PCs running Beckhoff TwinCAT Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs). So far, the functionality of the PLC programs has been verified on system level with the final hardware. This is a time-consuming manual task, but may also damage the hardware in case of severe program failures. To improve the verification process of PLC programs, a test environment with simulated hardware has been set up. It uses a virtual machine to run the PLC program together with a verification program that simulates the behavior of the hardware. Test execution and result checking is automated with the help of scripts, which communicate with the verification program to stimulate the PLC program. Thus, functional verification of PLC programs is reduced to running a set of scripts, without the need to connect to real hardware and without manual effort.

Poster MOPPC082 [0.226 MB]

MOPPC152

Accelerator Lattice and Model Services

database, lattice, GUI, EPICS

464

C.P. Chu
FRIB, East Lansing, Michigan, USA
F.Q. Guo, H.H. Lv, C.H. Wang, Z. Zhao
IHEP, Beijing, People's Republic of China
G. Shen
BNL, Upton, Long Island, New York, USA

Funding: This work is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science under Cooperative Agreement DE-SC0000661, and the Chinese Spallation Neutron Source Project.
Physics model based beam tuning applications are essential for complex accelerators. Traditionally, such applications acquire lattice data directly from a persistent data source and then carry out model computation within the applications. However, this approach often suffers from poor performance and modeling tool limitation. A better architecture is to offload heavy database query and model computation from the application instances. A database has been designed for hosting lattice and physics modeling data while a set of web based services then provide lattice and model data for the beam tuning applications to consume. Preliminary lattice and model services are based on standard J2EE Glassfish platform with MySQL database as backend data storage. Such lattice and model services can greatly improve the performance and reliability of physics applications.

Poster MOPPC152 [0.312 MB]

TUPPC082

DSP Design Using System Generator

FPGA, hardware, booster, interface

770

J.M. Koch
ESRF, Grenoble, France

When designing a real time control system, a fast data transfer between the different pieces of hardware must be guaranteed since synchronization and determinism have to be respected. One efficient solution to cope with these constraints is to embed the data collection, the signal-processing and the driving of the acting devices in FPGAs. Although this solution imposes that the whole design is being developed for an FPGA, in pure hardware, it is possible to open the part dedicated to the signal processing to non HDL (Hardware Description Language) specialists; the choice has been made here to develop this part under System Generator, in Simulink. Another challenge in such system design is the integration of real time models on already pre-configured hardware platforms. This paper describes with few examples how to interface such hardware with HDL System Generator control systems blocks. The advantages of Simulink for the simulation phase of the design as well as the possibility to introduce models dedicated to the tests are also presented.

Poster TUPPC082 [0.924 MB]

THPPC076

Re-Engineering Control Systems using Automatic Generation Tools and Process Simulation: the LHC Water Cooling Case

controls, PLC, operation, interlocks

1242

W. Booth, E.B. Blanco Vinuela, B. Bradu, L. Gomez Palacin, M. Quilichini, D. Willeman
CERN, Geneva, Switzerland

This paper presents the approach used at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) for the re-engineering of the control systems for the water cooling systems of the LHC (Large Hadron Collider). Due to a very short, and therefore restrictive, intervention time for these control systems, each PLC had to be completely commissioned in only two weeks. To achieve this challenge, automatic generation tools were used with the CERN control framework UNICOS (Unified Industrial Control System) to produce the PLC code. Moreover, process dynamic models using the simulation software EcosimPro were developed to carry out the ‘virtual’ commissioning of the new control systems for the most critical processes thus minimizing the real commissioning time on site. The re-engineering concerns around 20 PLCs managing 11000 Inputs/Outputs all around the LHC. These cooling systems are composed of cooling towers, chilled water production units and water distribution systems.

Poster THPPC076 [4.046 MB]

THPPC077

A Fuzzy-Oriented Solution for Automatic Distribution of Limited Resources According to Priority Lists

controls, cryogenics, superconducting-magnet, operation

1246

M. Pezzetti, V. Inglese, A. Tovar
CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
M.M. Almeida
UFMG, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
H. Coppier
ESIEE, Amiens, France

This paper proposes a solution for resources allocation when limited resources supply several clients in parallel. The lack of a suitable limitation mechanism in the supply system can lead to the depletion of the resources if the total demand exceeds the availability. To avoid this situation, an algorithm for priority handling which relies on the Fuzzy Systems Theory is used. The Fuzzy approach, as a problem-solving technique, is robust with respect to model and parameter uncertainties and is well-adapted to systems whose mathematical formulation is difficult or impossible to obtain. The aim of the algorithm is to grant a fair allocation if the resources availability is sufficient for all the clients, or, in case of excess of demand, on the basis of priority lists, to assure enough resources only to the high priority clients in order to allow the completion of the high priority tasks. Besides the general algorithm, this paper describes the Fuzzy approach applied to a cryogenic test facility at CERN. Simulation tools are employed to validate the proposed algorithm and to characterize its performance.

THPPC116

Temperature Precise Control in a Large Scale Helium Refrigerator

controls, cryogenics, operation, experiment

1331

Wu,J.H. wu, Q. Li, W. Pan
TIPC, BeiJing, People's Republic of China

Precise control of operating load temperature is a key requirement for application of a large scale helium refrigerator. Strict control logic and time sequence are necessary in the process related to main components including a fine load, turbine expanders and compressors. However control process sequence may become disordered due to improper PID parameter settings and logic equations and causes temperature oscillation, load augmentation or protection of the compressors and cryogenic valve function failure etc. Combination of experimental studies and simulation models, effect of PID parameters adjustment on the control process is present in detail. The methods and rules of general parameter settings are revealed and the suitable control logic equations are derived for temperature stabilization.

Poster THPPC116 [0.584 MB]

THPPC117

A Control Strategy for Highly Regulated Magnet Power Supplies Using a LQR Approach

controls, power-supply, damping, proton

1334

S. Srivastava, Y. Kumar, A. Misra, V.S. Pandit, S. Sahoo, S.K. Thakur
VECC, Kolkata, India

A linear quadratic regulator (LQR) based proportional-Integrator-derivative (PID) controller is proposed for the SMPS based magnet power supply of the high current proton injector operational at VECC. The state weighting matrices ‘Q’ of the LQR based controller is derived analytically using guaranteed dominant pole placement approach with desired ‘ζ’ (maximum overshoot) and ‘ω’(rise time). The uniqueness of this scheme is that the controller gives the desired closed loop response with minimum control effort, hence avoiding the actuator saturation by utilizing both optimum behavior of LQR technique and simplicity of the conventional PID controller. The controller and power supply parameter perturbations is studied along with the load disturbance to verify the robustness of proposed control mechanism.

THPPC137

Time Domain Simulation Software of the APS Storage Ring Orbit Real-time Feedback System

feedback, software, FPGA, storage-ring

1373

H. Shang, J. Carwardine, G. Decker, L. Emery, F. Lenkszus, N. Sereno, S. Xu
ANL, Argonne, USA

The APS storage ring real-time feedback (RTFB) system will be upgraded as part of the APS Upgrade project. The time domain simulation software is implemented to find the best parameters of correctors and evaluate the performance of different system configurations. The software includes two parts: the corrector noise model generator and the RTFB simulation. The corrector noise model generates the corrector noise data that are the input for the RTFB simulation. The corrector noise data are generated from the measured APS BPM turn-by-turn noise data, so that simulation actually reproduces the real machine. This paper introduces the algorithm and high-level software development of the corrector noise model generator and the RTFB simulation.
Work supported by U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357.

Poster THPPC137 [0.445 MB]

THCOCB02

The Role of Data Driven Models in Optimizing the Operation of the National Ignition Facility

laser, target, experiment, operation

1426

K.P. McCandless, J.-M.G. Di Nicola, S.N. Dixit, E. Feigenbaum, R.K. House, K.S. Jancaitis, K.N. LaFortune, B.J. MacGowan, C.D. Orth, R.A. Sacks, M.J. Shaw, C.C. Widmayer, S.T. Yang
LLNL, Livermore, California, USA

Funding: * This work performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344. #LLNL-ABS-633233
The Virtual Beam Line (VBL) code is essential to operate, maintain and validate the design of laser components to meet the performance goals at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility (NIF). The NIF relies upon the Laser Performance Operations Model (LPOM), whose physics engine is the Virtual Beam Line (VBL) code, to automate the setup of the laser by simulating the laser energetics of the as-built system. VBL simulates paraxial beam propagation, amplification, aberration and modulation, nonlinear self-focusing and focal behavior. Each of the NIF’s 192 beam lines are modeled in parallel on the LPOM Linux compute cluster during shot setup and validation. NIF achieved a record 1.8 MJ shot in July 2012, and LPOM (with VBL) was key to achieving the requested pulse shape. We will discuss some examples of how the VBL physics code is used to model the laser phenomena and operate the NIF laser system.

Slides THCOCB02 [4.589 MB]