The computer modeling laboratory in the Laboratory Science Commons — 2335, contains eight Linux workstations designed for a variety of scientific computing needs. Each workstation has a large 24″ LCD display and is hard-wired to the campus ethernet backbone to enable the rapid downloading of large files such as molecular dynamics trajectories. The facility is also equipped with four high definition 80″ LCD displays for teaching and sharing research data in a collaborative environment. These displays are capable of rendering computational models in 3D.
If you are an undergraduate or graduate student that is interested in becoming involved in computational chemistry research, or you are engaged in a research project and desire to add a computational or molecular modeling approach, contact Dr. Cashman.
Computer Systems
Dell Optiplex — 13 Workstations (D01 to D13)
- Intel Core i7-9700 CPU running at 3.00 GHz
- 32 GB RAM
- 500 GB solid state drive (local)
- 2 TB hard drive (local)
- nVIDIA Graphics
- Opensuse Linux
HPC Resources
Tennessee Tech University’s High Performance Computing (HPC) facility is located in Clement Hall 226. This facility includes the Impulse cluster, launched in 2017, and the Warp 1 cluster, launched in 2023 (NSF Award: 2127188). Both clusters are managed by Information Technology Services (ITS) and are available to all students, faculty and staff for research intensive computing needs and classes.
The Impulse cluster includes:
- 42 CPU compute nodes, each with 28 CPU cores (Intel Xeon E5-2680v4, 2.4 GHz) and 64-896 GB RAM.
- 2 GPU compute nodes, each with 28 CPU cores (Intel Xeon E5-2680v4, 2.4 GHz), 384 GB RAM, and two nVIDIA K80 GPUs (presented as four GPU devices).
- 56 Gb non-blocking InfiniBand network.
The Warp 1 cluster includes:
- 10 GPU compute nodes, each with 128 CPU cores (AMD Epyc 7713, 2.0 GHz), 512 GB RAM, and two nVIDIA A100 GPUs (presented as four GPU devices).
- 100 Gb non-blocking InfiniBand network.
Both clusters share 175 TB NFS file storage comnected to Impulse’s InfiniBand network. Both clusters include a variety of open-source and commercial applications supporting research and education for areas including artificial intelligence/machine learning, bioinformatics, computational fluid dynamics, finite element analysis, and molecular dynamics; plus support for secure container-based applications promoting reproducible research, computational mobility, and increased compatibility.
All HPC resources are available to all Tennessee Tech researchers after a brief consultation. Researchers can get help with software installation and licensing, working with the queueing system, developing workflows, and necessary end-user training.
The HPC cluster is maintained by Tennessee Tech Information Technology Services (ITS). The HPC cluster administrator is Dr. Mike Renfro (931-372-3601), who served as an NSF XSEDE Campus Champion for Tennessee Tech and continues to work with the NSF ACCESS program facilitating use of several NSF-funded supercomputing clusters around the country, helping researchers find appropriate external resources as needed. Sharon Colson and Jim Moroney work as Student Research Computing and Data Facilitators, assisting with cluster management and working with researchers on adapting their workflows to both the local HPC environment and to other facilities, including NSF ACCESS resource providers.
- ITS HPC Dashboard
- Request an HPC Account (you need to login to express.tntech.edu to view)
Poster Printing Resources
The computer modeling lab in LSC-2335 is equipped with a HP DesignJet poster printer for large-format printing of research posters for students, faculty and staff in the Department of Chemistry. This poster printer is capable of printing posters of maximum 35″ high and any length that is needed. There is a Windows workstation in LSC-2335 that will be used for printing to the DesignJet printer. The Volpe Library has information available on designing and printing posters for students here.
This printer is for the exclusive use of faculty, staff and students in the Department of Chemistry and not a general use printer available to the university community at large. For general use printing, you can contact the Printing Services office, or contact Amy Hill in Southwest Hall.
Contact Dr. Cashman for questions.
Color Printing Resources
The computer modeling lab is also equipped with a high quality color laserjet printer for publication quality prints. This printer is available for the use of faculty, staff and students in the Department of Chemistry. This printer is compatible with Microsoft Windows, MacOS, and OpenSuse Linux for printing directly from the molecular modeling workstations in the laboratory.
Contact Dr. Cashman for questions on using this resource.