What's in your kitchen? -Or- The beginnings of a DIY render farm with the *Real* stuff

[gentle_wolfox]

Heh, I haven't been posting much publicly; as I have been working my tail off or ranting and raving in a secret, evil journal. But here's something to chat about because I am also looking for anyone with any ideas to help make the job smoother. Otherwise, I will eventually figure it all out. But here's what's in the kitchen...

Comments

[wingywoof]

What program(s) are you using for the gas turbine modeling? Are you interested in doing any computational fluid dynamics?

[gentle_wolfox]

I am not quite positive yet. I have a professor in Civil Engineering that is doing dynamic fluid modeling for tornado and building/structural analysis. You know, making buildings and bridges tough against gale and stronger forced winds. He is utilizing a Sunfire V1200 cluster to run the works on and I am certain that it will run on a stand alone Dual processor box because UltraSPARC is UltraSPARC, no matter what. SO i am thinking of dropping in and seeing what he's doing and jot some notes. So that is up in the air. I have access to your basic toolbox of Matlab stuff to simulate the engine controller in a GUI once I build the modules and logic together. I can even make the silicon and fabricate it in Mentor and have access to a chip facility complete with furnace. As soon as I can get word and blessings (if any) from the CVEG professor, I think I can have a little more of a solid standing and understanding what is next. At the pressures and speeds a turbine operates at, you are correct - air works mor elike a fluid, especially when

[wingywoof]

Yeah, we had a final project in a thermal design elective like two terms ago that modeled a jet engine under a number of different conditions. We treated most of it as a heat engine and worked off of enthalpies and flow rates. The whole thing took about five hours in MathCAD.

I've been hearing a lot about single crystal superalloy turbine blades. Any experience with solid mechanics?

[gentle_wolfox]

Not much, and I certainly do not have the wherewith-all to grow single crystal blades. It is a fascinating fabrication technology, G.E. is already working on mass production of materials "twisted" and grown as single crystals for generators that use a gas turbine at their heart. Naturally, they are keeping this information close to their vests at the moment. What I am doing is literally home grown - slicing and dicing steel electrical conduit from one jig, assembly carried out in another jig to roughly get the turbine built with spot welds. It's then fully welded in place and then balanced by hand with a Dremel tool and a burst of compressed air to make it spin. I figure I have it balanced after shaving out the back plate of the turbine's hub here and there so it no longer buzzes around. :) My material sources - junk yards and auto wreckers. Please don't laugh. :D

[xaviusarchangel]

Heh, I have no idea what those things are, and yet I'm intrigued about them.

However, my first thoughts when seeing those images were, "I wonder how those things would run Folding@home..." :P

[gentle_wolfox]

I would not expect much, honestly out of the SGI's. In sheer computational strength, they are no greater than a Pentium 3 @ 450 MHz. SGI's power is purely in graphics, and if you can get it to go under OpenGL - well, you're going to need bolts to hold it to the desk. THey make excellent stand alone workstations if all you do is fetch e-mail and browse the web. They are *very* application specific machines. Now the Sunblade on the other hand... if they ported (and I am not sure of this) FAH to Solaris, it would mop the floor compared to anything else. Suns are math *engines* and as such are unparalleled, mini supercomputers... The difference between this machine and a SPARCUltra Center 5500 mainframes is only a few extra processors. Sixpaws wonders if shi can play Quake on them. *Eyeroll*

[skunktaur]

Hmmm... They might juuust be powerful enough to handle Six and me playing ;D

[prismo]

I just want my damn kitchen counter back. :D

[8bitbeta]

I was going to brag about my new computer, but damn...I wanna hangout with your friends if all of that tech is hand me downs. Sounds like you have an awesome render farm going on, and a killer setup for a LAN Party =P

the only input I can give you into it though is the physical fabrication of your engine. =)

that and I think the past couple of years of inhaling weld smoke and aluminum dust kinda dumbed me down. along with the people I deal with on a daily basis.

[gentle_wolfox]

Don't feel so bad, little bro. Sun's using a similar architecture that you are cobbling together for their entry level desktop workstations. They employ the use a similar, Multi-CPU configuration in high end workstations and entry level servers. Shows that you are doing something right. ;) As for LAN parties - I run a WiFI AP, show up, tune in, drop out...no need for wires or nothing. Those that are not that advanced yet, get to use the 24 port 10-base T workgroup hub of shame. *laugh*

Just keep using respirators and masks is all I can say. Aluminum is shag nasty stuff to be inhaling, for one. Second - it's been linked to alzheimer's disease in people's later years. So cover up!

[8bitbeta]

Actually it does not cause Alzheimers...or at least thats what my welding teacher told me, and it doesn't say it on the MSDS. Yeah I know its nasty stuff, I wear a mask when I have to grind alot of it. but what sucks is I have to crack open and blow out all of my eletronic stuff once in a while to get the aluminum dust out that follows me home.

[gentle_wolfox]

Ehhhhh, it was something I heard. Now that I took the time to actually crack the books (so to speak) you now find information like this