High performance computer methods applied to predictive spaceweather simulations

Taking advantage of the advent of massively parallel computers, sophisticated solution-adaptive techniques, and recent fundamental advances in basic numerical methods the authors have developed a high performance, adaptive-scale MHD code capable of resolving many of the critical processes in the Sun-Earth system which range over more than nine orders of magnitude. The development of such models are of increasing importance as the impact of space weather on vulnerable technological systems increases, and too, as the severity of space weather increases with the approach of solar maximum. There is an increasing need to develop physics-based, high performance models of the Sun-Earth system from the solar surface to the Earth's upper atmosphere which can operate faster than real time and which can provide reliable predictions of the near Earth space environment based upon solar observations and upstream solar wind measurements. They report on the status of the Michigan adaptive-scale MHD model, which is one effort whose goal is the development of an operational predictive space weather model     

Effect of water and paint coatings on the magnitude of laser-generated shocks

The radiation from Q-switched neodymium-glass lasers was used to generate high amplitude stress waves in thin metal targets. The experiments were conducted in air at ambient conditions and pressure measurements were made with commercially available X-cut quartz crystals. Peak pressures exceeding 2 GPa were obtained by use of water and paint coatings.