In addition, CISR utilizes the GW Virginia Campus Super-Computing Laboratory. The Super-Computing Laboratory is equipped with the high-performance computers required to perform the complex calculations integral to many of CISR’s advanced research projects.

The lab includes a SGI Origin 2000 parallel supercomputer. This system contains 16 250Mhz MIPS RISC® R10000 processors and has a peak performance of 16 GFLOPS. Other systems available to researchers include a HP V-2200, Silicon Graphics POWER CHALLENGE XL and Convex SPP-1600.

In addition to supercomputer resources, CISR maintains an ATM network of SGI O2, Indigo2 and Indy workstations to provide students with high-end 3-D graphics workstations. On these machines students learn to use FE model development software such as Patran 8.5, and finite element post-processors like LS-TAURUS, LS-POST and Ensight. Once a simulation is ready, students run the job on the Origin 2000 system and can usually have results back in a few hours. Completed simulations are rendered, animated, and laid down on video tape using an SGI O2 workstation.