Molecular dynamics simulations of detonation on the roadrunner supercomputer

Abstract

The temporal and spatial scales intrinsic to a real detonating explosive are extremely difficult to capture using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Nevertheless, MD remains very attractive since it allows for the resolution of dynamic phenomena at the atomic scale. Large-scale reactive MD simulations in three dimensions require immense computational resources even when simple reactive force fields are employed. We focus on the REBO force field for 'AB' since it has been shown to support a detonation while being simple, analytic, and short-ranged. The transition from two-to three-dimensional simulations is being facilitated by the port of the REBO force field in the parallel MD code SPaSM to LANL's petaflop supercomputer 'Roadrunner'. We provide a detailed discussion of the challenges associated with computing interatomic forces on a hybrid Opteron/Cell BE computational architecture.