| THE JOINT PAK-US PROJECT BETWEEN GIKI (PAKISTAN) AND UIUC (USA) |
DEVELOPMENT OF COMPUTATIONAL MECHANICS INFRASTRUCTURE AND HUMAN RESOURCES FOR ADVANCING ENGINEERING DESIGN PRACTICES IN THE PAKISTANI INDUSTRY
(JANUARY 2006 – SEPTEMBER 2006)
Principal Investigators: Professor Abdullah Sadiq (GIK), Professor Arif Masud (UIC/UIUC)
Co-PI’s: Professor Mohammad Abid (GIK), Professor Ashfaq Khokhar (UIC)
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| Fig. 1. Group photo at the end of the first meeting on April 3, 2006. |
INTRODUCTION AND PROGRESS REPORT
1. A Brief Summary of the Project:
We first present a brief description of the project, its scope and objectives, and the list of tasks that were proposed for the year-one activity of the project. This will help in evaluating the performance of the participating institutions on the project as well as the timeline for its execution. The following is an xcerpt from the proposal.
“This proposal is aimed at developing human resources and infrastructure to promote the application of advanced engineering analysis and design methodologies in the contemporary product development in Pakistan. The short term objective of the proposed effort is to establish an interdisciplinary computational mechanics program that can provide strength to all the affiliated engineering disciplines at GIK, enhance the application of computers and computer tools in engineering curriculum, initiate new courses and hands-on training sessions, organize tutorials and seminar series on modern analysis methods, train the future generation of students with expertise in application of computers in engineering analysis and design, and establish a modern computational platform for large-scale simulation of engineering systems. The long term objective of the effort is to rejuvenate the industrial base of Pakistan by bringing about awareness among the industry practitioners to acquire and implement the modern design and analysis methodologies in the industry practices.”
2. List of Major Tasks Performed in Year-One:
This is the first progress report that covers performance period from January 2006 to September 2006. During this period following tasks were successfully carried out:
1. First planning and scheduling meeting (3rd and 4th April, 2006) held at GIK. (Appendix A, B1, B2)
2. Second planning and scheduling meeting (4th and 5th July, 2006) held at GIK. (Appendix C)
3. Purchase of Cluster Components for High Performance Computing Lab. This cluster is currently
being built at GIK and it will lead to the development of a large scale computational facility at GIK
institute consisting of 64 nodes Beowulf PC cluster connected via gigabit Ethernet. (Appendix D)
4. An in depth evaluation of the existing analysis and design courses at GIK institute that took place at
the first planning meeting in April 2006. This was preceded by an extensive exchange of information via emails to narrow down the list of relevant courses.
5. Establishing the contents of Curriculum for Computational Mechanics Program. Finalizing the course
contents lead to the development of the interdisciplinary computational mechanics curriculum at GIK
institute. (Appendix E)
6. First Summer Camp and Tutorial Session – “Workshop on High Performance Computing” by US
partners. This workshop was offered by Co-PI Professor Ashfaq Khokhar from UIC. It was a two weeks long effort and was very well received. (Appendix F,G,H)
7. Screening and selection of PhD candidates from a pool of qualified applicants. Identification of their
PhD thesis topics, and preparation of an action plan for the next three years. (Appendix I)
8. Public Announcement of the new program at GIK, and selection of potential graduate students for the
MS studies in Computational Mechanics. (Appendix J)
9. Transfer of Professor Arif Masud’s course on “Linear Finite Element Analysis”, that he regularly
teaches at UIC, to Professor M. Abid of GIK. This course is now being taught at GIK by the local
GIK faculty.
10. Student exchange via the visit of two UIC graduate students during the summer semester of 2006 to
GIK. These students worked together with the GIK faculty and fellow PhD students, and helped
Professor Khokhar in organizing the High Performance Computing workshop.
11. Establishment of an International Seminar Series on “Computational Mechanics”. Two seminars
were given. The slides of presentations will be made available on the dedicated website (which is at
the moment under construction at GIK). First seminar by delivered Professor Arif Masud on July 4th
2006). Second seminar was given by Professor Rizwan Uddin of the University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign, USA. (Appendix K)
12. Establishment of Industry-University Liaison via a dedicated half day workshop that involved UIC
and GIK faculty, and representatives from the leading Industry from various parts of Pakistan. This will be evolved into an Industrial Advisory Board meeting that will take place annually. The list of participants for the First Industry-University Liaison Meeting, that was held on April 4, 2006, is given in Appendix B2.
13. Website development. Establishment of a dedicated web page for the joint US-Pakistan R&D effort
is under way and will be completed by end of October. Establishment of an internet based infrastructure will provide a seamless link between the PIs and the graduate students enrolled in this program at the two institutions.
14. Formal launching of Computational Mechanics Program for Fall 2006. (Appendix J)
3. Data on Number of Pakistanis Involved in or Directly Impacted by the Project:
1. Number of GIK Faculty Involved: 4
2. Number of GIK students (PhD candidates): 2
3. Number of GIK students in MS program (via course work offered): 10
4. Number of GIK students who attended the seminars: 25
5. Number of GIK students who attended Summer Workshop on High Performance Computing: 16
6. Number of GIK Industry partners and practitioners involved via the liaisons with Industry: 6
7. Number of Pakistani researchers involved (directly or indirectly): 7
3.1 Papers Published and Conference Presentations made:
1. Muhammad abid, "Determination of safe operating conditions for gasketed flange joint under
internal pressure and temperature Intenl Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping IPVP2564,pp1-9, 2006 3.2 Students trained and Junior Collaborators involved:
During this first year the project involved 5 graduate students and 2 junior faculty. From the UIC, the
following three students worked on this project: Waseem Ahmad, Ragu Kanan, Fadi Al-Masalha. From
GIK, following junior faculty and students were involved in the project: Shahid Maqsood and Masroor
Husseein, Abdul Wajid, Moatbar Shah.
4. Summary of First Planning and Scheduling Meeting: (April 3-4, 2006)
The first meeting of PI’s of the Pak-US Project was held on 3-4 April 2006 at GIK Institute. It was chaired by Professor Abdullah Sadiq, Rector Ghulam Ishaq Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology, Topi (GIKI) and Professor Arif Masud of University of the Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), USA, who are the principal investigators of this Project. The meeting was attended by the coprincipal investigators of the Project, Dr. Muhammad Abid of GIKI and Professor Ashfaq Khokhar of UIC, faculty members from GIKI, and some representatives from academia, R&D organizations and Industry (Please see Appendix-A for the Program of the meeting and Appendix-B for the list of the participants at the meeting).
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| Fig. 2. Prof. Masud giving overview of the Project. | Fig 3. Prof. Chatta (GIK) describing an experiment. |
On the first day of the meeting the guests from UIC visited various facilities of the Institute and met
faculty members and students. Later on during a meeting that was attended by concerned faculty members of GIKI (Appendix-B) Prof. Abdullah Sadiq welcomed the guests and briefed them about the
various aspects of the Institute. Prof. Arif Masud gave a brief overview of simulation based engineering
design and then gave a detailed presentation about the goals and objectives of the current project,
highlighting the relevance of the project for sustainable industrial development in Pakistan. Prof. Ashfaq
Khokhar and Dr. Pierre discussed various aspects of high performance computing and cluster computing that would be required for this project. Dr. Parvez Mughal gave a brief presentation about teaching and research activities of the Institute, and Dr. Abid briefed the participant about the courses that are offered by various faculties that are relevant and can be included in the project. After detailed discussions it was decided to initiate a program of Computational Mechanics as a specialization of the MS degree at GIKI under the umbrella of this Project. Some aspects of the required computational infrastructure i.e. cluster system for parallel high performance computing that would be required for this program were also identified. Prof. Dr. S. Ikram A. Tirmizi gave a brief presentation on Graduate Program of the Institute. On the second day of the meeting linkage with other academic Institutes, R&D organizations and industry were discussed. Highlighting the importance of proposed Computational Mechanics Program for academia, R&D organizations and industry, Dr. Masud emphasized the need of close collaboration between them. Giving an overview of the collaboration of GIKI with R &D organizations and industry Professor Fazal Khalid emphasized that such collaboration is beneficial for all concerned and that this project provides an ideal opportunity to further strengthen these linkages. Dr. Abid also briefed the audience about another related Project of GIKI under the Asia Link Program of the European Union and said that both projects are meant to help GIKI develop infrastructure for training, teaching and research related to design.
5. Summary of Second Planning and Scheduling Meeting: (July 4-5, 2006)
The second planning and scheduling meeting was held at GIK on July 4 and 5, 2006. It was attended by
Professor Arif Masud from UIC/UIUC and the faculty of GIK institute. During this meeting the Computational Mechanics Program was reviewed in light of the approved courses and the scheduling
and timing of the offering of these courses. During this visit the International Seminar Series on
Computational Mechanics was initiated. The first lecture of the series was delivered by Professor Arif
Masud. (See Appendix A). Later, Professor Masud interviewed several potential students for possible
candidacy in the graduate research program. Professor Abid and Professor Masud discussed the course contents of the Finite Element course, and it was decided to revamp the course contents. In this regards Professor Masud provided the course notes and handouts from the first year graduate course on Finite Element Analysis that he teaches at UIC. The new upgraded course on Finite Element Analysis is now in place at GIK and is currently being taught by Dr. Abid during the Fall 2006 semester. During this meeting, research topics for the graduate students were streamlined in light of the local expertise
available at GIK and the current needs and requirements in the growing Pakistani industry. It was
concluded that the research emphasis should be focused only on three topics, thermal processing,
structural analysis and computational fluid dynamics. Professor Masud also provided GIK two open source Finite Element Codes that will be installed at the GIK computational facility, and will be used in research and teaching activities. It was decided to hold a third meeting toward the end of the year where the faculty of the two participating institutions will come together for a self evaluation of the project. This meeting is now being scheduled at GIK during December 2006, and planned in conjunction with the International Advisory Board of GIK Institution.
6. Establishment of the Computational Mechanics Program at GIK:
It was decided that under this Computational Mechanics Program, research efforts will initially be
focused on three main areas:
• Thermal Processing of Materials,
• Structural Analysis, and
• Computational Fluid Dynamics
Following the bylaws of GIK and the course requirements for the MS program at GIK, following is the
list of courses that were selected to be the core and elective courses. A detailed description of these
courses in presented in Appendix E.
6.1 Course Curriculum Requirements for MS Degree at GIKI:
MS degree at GIK requires 7 courses, i.e., 21 credit hours. It was decided that students will select 4
courses form the list of courses under “core”, and will select 3 courses from the list of “electives. It was
discussed and approved that students will be encouraged to do small research project as a part of MS
curriculum requirement. Thesis would be equivalent to the work load of three courses, i.e, 9 credits
hours. Together it will constitute 30 credit hours of work load.
6.2 List of Required Core Courses: (Students take 4 courses from this list)
The following two courses are mandatory courses:
• ME-506 Continuum Mechanics
• ME-5XX Partial Differential Equations
Students take 2 more courses from the following list:
• ME-514 Advanced Stress Analysis
• ME-524 Computational Fluid Dynamics
• ES-541 Variational Methods in Mechanics (New course being designed)
• ME-515 Finite Element Method
• CS-5XX High Performance Computing (New course being designed)
• ME-512 Advanced Solid Mechanics
6.3 List of Elective Courses: (Students take 3 courses from this list)
• ME-516 Applied Finite Element Analysis
• ES-533 Numerical Methods for Partial Differential Equations
• ES-534 Numerical Functional Analysis
• ES-531 Computational Methods for Engineers
• CS-417 Parallel Processing (New course being designed)
7. Strengthening of the Graduate Course on Linear Finite Element Method offered at GIK:
Contents of the Graduate Course on FEA that was being offered at GIK were discussed.
• Professor Masud handed over the lecture notes and class handouts and assignments from the first
year graduate course on “Linear Finite Element Analysis”, that he regularly teaches at UIC, to Professor M. Abid of GIK. Professor Abid is teaching this course in the Fall 2006 semester at GIK.
• Open source finite element analysis code FEAP, that is freely available from University of California Berkeley, and Warp-3D which is the open source code from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was provided to GIKI. Two PhD students at GIK are now working on compiling these codes and running a sequence of benchmark problems in order to test and confirm a successful installation of these codes on GIK computers. These two codes will subsequently be used in the PhD studies of the students involved.
8. First Summer Camp and Tutorial Session - Workshop on High Performance Computing by
US partners. (See Appendix F, G, H)
First major activity during summer was a workshop on High Performance Computing arranged at GIKI.
A five days workshop on Parallel Programming /Distributed Platforms (August 7th – 11th, 2006) was
offered at GIK. The course was conducted by Dr. Ashfaq A. Khokhar, Professor Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) USA. Different parallel programming techniques and problem solving skills were discussed. Hands-on training was provided to enhance understanding of the core concepts used in the underlying technology. The research is believed to lead to a more advanced research of GRID Technologies which is used all over the world for parallel processing across geographical boundaries.
The workshop was attended by 25 participants. Out of these 9 participants came from outside GIKI from
academia, R&D and Industrial sector in Pakistan. Prof. Dr. Ashfaq Khokhar Co-Director of Pak-US project was assisted by his graduate students from UIC (USA) who travelled to Pakistan to work and
interact with their Pakistani counterparts.
At the end of the workshop participants were asked to fill in an anonymous course evaluation form and
provide detailed comments. The details of this evaluation are available with GIK. Overall, the participants rated the course contents and instruction quality at 9 on a scale of 10. A list of participants is presented in Appendix H.
9.International Seminar Series on Computational Mechanics
An International Seminar series on Computational Mechanics was established. The objective of this
seminar series is to invite speakers of international repute from the technologically advanced countries
so that they can share their research experience with the students and faculty at GIK. This is aimed at
developing a research oriented atmosphere at the institution.
• First seminar of the series was delivered by Dr. Arif Masud on July 4, 2006. Title of the talk was “A New Class of Multiscale Finite Element Methods: Application to Fluid and Solid Mechanics”. This seminar was attended by more than 25 participants including participants from academia, industry and research organizations. (Appendix K).
• Second seminar was delivered by Professor Rizwan Uddin from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. Title of his talk was “Internet Based Distance Learning Techniques: Collaborative Research with Large System Codes on the Web”. It was attended by GIKI faculty members and students. Possibilities of distance learning using web based transmission in different institutions locally and with international institutes was discussed in detail.
10. Purchase of Cluster Components for High Performance Computing Lab
After careful technical discussions and market research, various items for the Beowulf Cluster were
purchased. Cluster assembly is in progress which will be completed by the mid of October 2006, and
will help develop a High Performance Computing Lab at GIK. See Appendix D for the list of purchased items.
11. Selection of Potential Graduate (PhD) Students
During the second Planning and Scheduling meeting (4th and 5th July, 2006) Professor Masud met
potential graduate students who had earlier been screened by the GIK faculty for possible admission to
the PhD program. On July 4th Professor Masud interviewed four students. After the interviews that were
conducted in presence of Professor Abid, two students were admitted to the PhD candidacy. During the
summer workshop, Professor Khokhar met with another set of 4 graduate students and evaluated their
credentials. Of those one student has been admitted to the PhD program at GIK. Two more students
were selected for MS research. Selection of the MS research topics and potential PhD research topics
was discussed and finalized for the selected students. See Appendix I.
12. Launching of Computational Mechanics Program for Fall 2006 and Announcement and
Selection of Potential Graduate Students
Graduate program in the field of Computational Mechanics has been launched for the Fall 2006 semester. An announcement for the selection of more MS and PhD students was made in August 2006,
in major daily newspapers. Six candidates applied, after rigorous entry exam four candidates were short
listed and interviewed. See Appendix M that contains the copy of the Advertisement.
13. Development of a Dedicated Website
A dedicated website is being developed for this project, and it will be completed by the end of October
2006. This site will be used for public awareness of the newly established program, to disseminate the
research findings to the larger audience. This site will contain links to the affiliated industrial partners,
information on the newly established degree programs, information on the seminars and workshops
conducted by the international faculty, and information on the current research topics.
