D-BAUG - Departement Bau, Umwelt und Geomatik - ETH Zürich

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Fig. 1: Section of a topographic atlas map of the Moutier Gorge (Switzerland). Fig. 2: Interactive virtual globe draped with a thematic representation showing the global atmospheric pressure and main wind directions. High-Tech Measuring Systems ▪ Highlights Fig. 3: Block diagram showing a digital terrain model of the Moutier Gorge (Switzerland). Fig. 4: Dynamic visualisation tool showing the revolution of the earth around the sun combined with an interactive chart to explain the seasonal daylight pattern. Fig. 5: Experimental configuration in the laboratory: the laser beam is expanded and thinned to a light sheet, then scanned through the observation volume via the rotation of an eight-faced prism. Fig. 6: Images of the air invasion structure in the porous medium at times, from left to right, 2 s, 4 s, 6 s, and 8 s. The height of the packing is 157 mm. The air flow rate is 8.25 ml/min. D-BAUG Annual Report 2009 ▪ 71
Highlights ▪ High-Tech Measuring Systems Material Research on Game Consoles First they conquered the playrooms of our chil- dren, now they are about to change computa- tional sciences. by K. Kovacs, F.K. Wittel, H.J. Herrmann / IfB Game consoles and so called Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) from high performance graphic cards promise an extreme performance leap for numeric simulations.Today the way we program numerical models and run our simulations is changing rapidly.Thereasoncanbefoundinprocessors(CPU),that require more complicated cooling concepts due to increase in clock frequency.To deal with this matter,frequencies were reduced in the last years and several processors,so called multi cores were integrated on one chip. CPUs under development will work with up to 64 cores and graphic cards already today work with up to512simpleprocessors that share thesamememoryonone GPU.The theoretical increase in performance of simple integer operationscompared tosinglecoreCPUsisup toafactorof200 at a fraction of the energy.To be able to use such processors efficiently, software needs to be tailored to the architecture. Cell CPUs, that are the heart of the PlayStation3, are a promising compromise between CPUs and the cumbersome to program GPUs. To meet the challenges of high performance simulations on modernsharedmemory architectures,investments infast cluster solutions are essential.By extending our cluster to 456 cores with a total of 1.2TB memory,a peak performance of around 5- 6 TFlops, fast 40GB/s interlink and a parallel file system with 35TB,wearenowable tomeet ourneeds.Themultitudeofchallenging numerical approaches used to simulate building materials was awarded recently by an “IBM Faculty Award”. With this award,support in form of cell blade hardware and expertise from developers is granted to facilitate the implementation of our simulation programs to the cell blade architecture (Fig.1). Using this technology we can expect to run significantly larger simulationsup to10 times faster at 70% energy reductioncompared to the newest multi-core processors. 72 ▪ D-BAUG Annual Report 2009 Rockglacier monitoring with low-cost GPS: Case study on the Dirru glacier, Mattertal Is it possible to detect smallest move- ments by low-cost GPS receivers? by P. Limpach, A. Geiger, M. Rothacher / IGP This question shall be answered by a pilot project on the Dirru rockglacier in the Mattertal,where a test network for GPS monitoring has been installed in June 2009 (Fig.1a).The goal of the test network is to investigate the potential of low-cost GPS receiversfortheprecisemonitoringofslopeinstabilitiesinmountainous areas, in order to strengthen the understanding of processeslinked to permafrost-related slope instabilities and to enhance existing monitoring and early-warning systems. The test site was selected by the Alpine Cryosphere and Geomorphology research group of the University of Fribourg and the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN),based on displacements detected by SAR interferometry and periodic GPS surveys.This study is financially supported by FOEN. The GPS test network consistsof three permanent GPSstations (Fig. 2a):one reference station (REFD) outside the instable area and twostations(DIR2 andDIR3)on the movingrockglacier.The three stations are equipped with low-cost single-frequency (L1) GPSreceiversbySwissmanufacturerµ-bloxandpoweredbysolar panels (Fig. 2b).The GPS data processing is based on differential carrier phase techniques.The low-cost GPS system provides continuous observations of surface motions with centimeter accuracy. It allowed to reliably observe station displacementsof2.5cm/day,whichsummedup to3mover theobservation period of 4 months (Fig.2c).
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D-BAUG Department of Civil, Environ
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Preface In the middle of difficulty
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MSc Excellence Scholarships 6 ▪ D
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Donators D-BAUG If we meet someone
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Student Figures 1 For additional fi
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Field Trip Field Trip to Vienna’s
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D-BAUG - Departement Bau, Umwelt und Geomatik - ETH Zürich

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