Simulation and Visualization of Compressible Convection in Two and Three Dimensions a

The combination of a supercomputer, accurate and efficient numerical methods, and hardware and software devoted to the analysis and visualization of supercomputer simulations constitutes a numerical laboratory for performing a wide variety of experiments in fluid dynamics. Over the last 4 years we have built up such a numerical laboratory at the University of Minnesota. Here we will present some of the results that this laboratory has produced. These results are best seen in the laboratory itself as color movies shown at high resolution. In this paper we can unfortunately give only a glimpse of the vast quantity of data from our experiments. Readers who wish to see the movies associated with the simulations described here should send a blank VHS, SVHS, 8 mm, or %-inch U-Matic video cassette and self-addressed, stamped envelope to the authors, and a video copy of the movies will be returned to them in the appropriate format. Our numerical laboratory at Minnesota is built from several components. First, of course, is the Cray-2 supercomputer of the Minnesota Supercomputer Institute, which has performed all the simulations discussed in this article. Second is the Piecewise-Parabolic Method (PPM), a gas dynamics simulation code derived from the early MUSCL code of Woodward',' and developed at Livermore by Woodward and Colella.s" Third is a high-speed graphics system that stores data from the simulations, analyzes and archives it, and that generates and displays high-resolution