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ARCHER2 Weekly Newsletter

By ARCHER2 Service on July 1, 2026

Tags: newsletters 

HEC-WSI: From GPU-Accelerated OpenFOAM to High-Fidelity Modelling of Offshore Floating Wind Turbines

Free webinar, Wednesday 8th July 2026 15:00 - 16:00

The High End Computing Consortium for Wave Structure Interaction (HEC-WSI) presents a series of talks demonstrating how ARCHER2 enables state-of-the-art research in wave–structure interaction.

Numerical Study on the Interaction of Breaking Waves and an Offshore Floating Wind Turbine under Realistic Sea States

Presenters: Lige Zhao (lige.zhao@plymouth.ac.uk)

Abstract: Wave breaking is one of the primary mechanisms of energy dissipation at the air–sea interface. The transient dynamics and strong instability of wave breaking introduce significant difficulties in both experimental and numerical modelling. In the COAST Laboratory at the University of Plymouth, a series of focused and irregular wave breaking experiments were conducted on a 1:69.29 scale WINDCRETE spar-type floating wind turbine model. These experiments highlighted the inherent instability of breaking events and the resulting transient pressure impacts on the spar structure. To further investigate the detailed hydrodynamic mechanisms of the impact process, the experiments were replicated numerically using OpenFOAM on ARCHER2. The high-resolution simulations enable detailed analysis of wave breaking dynamics, pressure distribution, and energy dissipation processes under realistic sea states.

Cross-platform GPU Implementation of OpenFOAM Using Only ISO C++ standard parallelism

Presenters: Jony Castagna (jony.castagna@stfc.ac.uk)

Abstract: In this work, we present our port of OpenFOAM to GPUs using the C++ standard parallel execution model (stdpar) introduced in ISO C++17. With a minimally intrusive strategy—primarily replacing serial loops with stdpar constructs—we offload the full computational workload of typical CFD simulations to multicore and manycore architectures. This approach is vendor agnostic, maintains a single unified codebase, and can be integrated easily into the main OpenFOAM release.

Numerical Simulation of a Floating Offshore Wind Turbine at Scale on ARCHER2 with OpenFOAM

Presenter: Tianyang Zhao (tianyang.zhao@eng.ox.ac.uk)

Abstract: This presentation introduces a wave–structure interaction (WSI) framework in OpenFOAM for simulating a slack-moored floating offshore wind turbine and shares practical experience of running it efficiently at scale on ARCHER2. The tutorial case represents the COAST Lab 1:70 physical model of the FOWT, including the platform–tower–nacelle rigid-body dynamics coupled with a mooring system using published mass properties, fairlead locations and mooring parameters. The geometry and coordinate systems are prepared so the body-fixed frame aligns with the global frame with the tower along the global Z axis, enabling clean interpretation of 6-DoF motions and loads. Additional libraries have been implemented and integrated into the OpenFOAM framework, providing the required coupling capability and ensuring the end-to-end simulation runs robustly in parallel. A representative run covers 115 s of simulated time and typically takes 43 hours on ARCHER2 using 512 CPU cores (4 × 128), producing 292 GB of data. The presentation highlights the end-to-end workflow (job setup, parallel strategy, and I/O/data management) and the key lessons learned for reliable, reproducible large-scale OpenFOAM FOWT simulations.

Full details and join link

Data Carpentry

Online, 21st - 24th July 2026 13:00 - 16:30 BST

Data Carpentry develops and teaches workshops on the fundamental data skills needed to conduct research. Its target audience is researchers who have little to no prior computational experience, and its lessons are domain specific, building on learners’ existing knowledge to enable them to quickly apply skills learned to their own research. Participants will be encouraged to help one another and to apply what they have learned to their own research problems.

This workshop uses a tabular ecology dataset from the Portal Project Teaching Database and teaches data cleaning, management, analysis, and visualization. There are no pre-requisites, and the materials assume no prior knowledge about the tools. We use a single dataset throughout the workshop to model the data management and analysis workflow that a researcher would use.

The workshop will cover:

  • Data Organization in Spreadsheets Learn how to organize tabular data, handle date formatting, carry out quality control and quality assurance and export data to use with downstream applications.
  • Data Cleaning with OpenRefine Explore, summarize, and clean tabular data reproducibly.
  • Data Analysis and Visualization in R Import data into R, calculate summary statistics, and create publication-quality graphics.
  • Data Management with SQL Structure data for database import. Query data within a relational database.

Please note that the first two lessons are more introductory and are covered on the first day of the workshop. The third lesson is delivered over two days, while the last one is taught on the last day of the workshop.

Full details and registration

Intermediate Modern Fortran

Online, 27, 29 and 31 July 2026 10:00 - 16:00

Fortran (a contraction of Formula Translation) was the first programming language to have a standard (in 1954), but has changed significantly over the years. More recent standards (the latest being Fortran 2018) come under the umbrella term “Modern Fortran”. Fortran retains very great significance in many areas of scientific and numerical computing, particularly for applications such as quantum chemistry, plasmas, engineering and fluid dynamics, and in numerical weather prediction and climate models.

This intermediate course concentrates on some of the more recent features which are central to Modern Fortran. Attendees should be familiar with the basics of Fortran programming.

There are two main topics in this intermediate course: the facilities in Fortran for abstraction and polymorphism provided by classes and interfaces, and the facilities for formal interoperability with ANSI C. The course will cover type extension (“classes” and “inheritance”), type-bound procedures (“methods”), generic procedures (“polymorphism”), and so on. The standard iso_c_binding module provides facilities for interoperability with C; this allow the communication of Fortran entities with direct analogues C, and also Fortran objects (particularly arrays) which have no direct analogue in C.

Further language features concerning arrays, pointers, and facilities for structured programming using submodules will also be covered along the way.

Knowledge of the object-oriented paradigm would be useful, but is not essential. Knowledge of C is required for the material on C/Fortran interoperation. The course will allow programmers interested in working on larger, structured, software projects to make use of (almost) a full complement of Modern Fortran features.

Full details and registration

Advanced MPI

Online, 28 July 2026 10:00 - 16:00 BST

This course is aimed at programmers seeking to deepen their understanding of MPI and explore some of its more recent and advanced features. We cover functionality including exploiting shared-memory access from MPI programs and advanced use of collectives. We also look at performance aspects such as MPI internal implementation issues and which MPI point-to-point routines to use for scalability.

Intended learning outcomes:

  • Understanding of how internal MPI implementation details affect performance
  • Advanced use of collectives via derived datatypes
  • Using the MPI shared-memory model to optimise per-node memory usage

Attendees should be familiar with MPI programming in C, C++ or Fortran, e.g. have attended the ARCHER2 MPI course.

Full details and registration:

ARCHER2 end of service: 21 Nov 2026

To help users, we have compiled a set of documentation specifically covering the end of the ARCHER2 service

The documentation covers:

  • Timeline for the end of the ARCHER2 service
  • Data on ARCHER2: what do I need to do to save data I have stored on ARCHER2 file systems?
  • EPCC SAFE: what happens to my personal data in SAFE?
  • HPC access beyond ARCHER2

Key impacts for ARCHER2 users:

  • Data on home, work, solid state scratch file systems will not be accessible beyond the end of the ARCHER2 service
  • RDFaaS will continue beyond the lifetime of ARCHER2 but users will need to transfer data from /epsrc and /general to a different local mount point on ARCHER2 - more details will be provided as soon as they are available
  • No login access will be available beyond the end of the ARCHER2 service

If you have questions about the end of service that are not answered by the documentation, then please contact the ARCHER2 service desk

ARCHER2 User Survey 2026

We are committed to continually improving the ARCHER2 Service and would like to request your input to help us understand what is important to you, where the Service is working well and where there is scope for improvement.

The ARCHER2 User Survey consists of just a few questions and should take only a few minutes of your time to complete. There are opportunities to add more detailed comments if you wish.

For each survey response received, we will donate £1 to Save The Children. Additionally, if you enter your ARCHER2 username in the final question, then you will be entered into the prize draw to win one of five £50 Amazon vouchers.

Complete the survey

Thank you in advance for taking the time to complete this survey. The responses will be used to try and improve the service for you and to help identify key areas for service development, and will be shared with UKRI for consideration in planning future services.

Looking to get a piece of the CAKE? Call for Placements & Visits!

CAKE supports placements and visits that bring people together, creating the space to share ideas, build relationships, and spark new ways of working. We primarily support travel and subsistence costs to enable placements and visits for the UK DRI community, helping you connect both within the UK and with international partners.

This funding is designed to build new collaborations or strengthen existing ones, with a focus on creating lasting partnerships by providing the time and space to connect. If you’ve been thinking, “It would be great if we could spend some time working with them…” but haven’t had the resources to get started, this could be the opportunity you’re looking for!

Find out more and apply here

Recently added known issues

The “Known Issues” page of the ARCHER2 Documentation https://docs.archer2.ac.uk/known-issues/ lists all current open known issues including a description of the issue, its symptoms and any work-arounds.

No recent issues

Upcoming ARCHER2 Training

Further details of upcoming training

We always welcome researchers wishing to present their work in a webinar - please contact the Service Desk if you would be interested in presenting your work.

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Recordings of past courses

Recordings of past virtual tutorials