Scientific Visualization Team Wins Second OASCR Award

A short movie entitled "Simulation of Non-Newtonian Suspensions: Shear Thinning Case" developed by ITL's Scientific Applications and Visualization Group in collaboration with scientists from NIST's Building and Fire Research Laboratory (BFRL) was chosen to receive an OASCR Award at the 2009 Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing (SciDAC) Conference held in San Diego on June 14-18, 2009. The SciDAC Conference brings together about 350 scientists participating in DOE's SciDAC Program along with other prominent researchers from the computational science community. Named for DOE's Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research, OASCRs were awarded to 10 entries at the conference's Electronic Poster and Visualization Night session. The NIST entry illustrates how suspensions such as concrete or paint react as strain is applied. In particular, the movie visualizes the results of a high-performance computer simulation which models the change in local shear rates and viscosity throughout a suspension as a constant rate of strain is applied. The movie was produced by William George, Steven Satterfield, John Hagedorn, Marc Olano and Judith Terrill of the Mathematical and Computational Sciences Division, along with Nicos Martys of BFRL's Materials and Construction Research Division. This is the second OASCR award garnered by the NIST team. The winning submissions received gold-colored statuettes reminiscent of a Hollywood event with a homonymic name.