KULL: LLNL's ASCI Inertial Confinement Fusion Simulation Code

Abstract

KULL is a three dimensional, time dependent radiation hydrodynamics simulation code under development at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. A part of the U.S. Department of Energy's Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI), KULL's purpose is to simulate the physical processes in Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) targets. The National Ignition Facility, where ICF experiments will be conducted, and ASCI are part of the experimental and computational components of DOE's Stockpile Stewardship Program. This paper provides an overview of ASCI and describes KULL, its hydrodynamic simulation capability and its three methods of simulating radiative transfer. Particular emphasis is given to the parallelization techniques essential to obtain the performance required of the Stockpile Stewardship Program and to exploit the massively parallel processor machines that ASCI is procuring