Why is there no computer simulation of the WTC collapse?, page 1

Originally posted by AgentSmith
It was a laborious process. Creating just one-tenth of a second of the simulation took about 95 hours of computation time on a supercomputer.

And this was relatively simple, so perhaps that is the answer why we are still waiting for a computer simulation of the collapse, because it takes an incredible length of time to input the data and then for the computer to actually do the calculations. The WTC fires and collapse would be far, far more complicated than this simulation and this one takes 95 hours for 1/10th second.

Some people seem to think it could be done over a weekend or even a year. If we use these figures as a base, forgetting that the simulation of the WTC collapse would be FAR more complicated and would require even MORE computing time:

It was about 104 minutes between the North Tower impact and it's collapse, everything would have to be simulated to make it realistic. I'm sure if a simulation was made of just the collapse for instance, a lot of people would be crying that it was a farce as they didn't simulate the conditions properly

So 95 hours for 1/10th second, One second of the simulation would take 950 hours.

In 104 minutes there are 6240 seconds.

6240 seconds times 950 hours is 5,928,000 hours.

5,928,000 hours divided by 24 gives 247000 days.

247000 days divided by 365 gives 676.71 years.

Hello AgentSmith,

I was searching for non technical explanation how much computing power have current supercomputers, but I did not find a good article.

I doubt that you need such enourmous time to do the simulation, I can't dispute with exact numbers but please check this:

Current list of Top 500 supercomputers is here, for example the 7th "Earth Simulator" is capable of 35.86 trillion floating-point calculations per second.
Official homepage: The Earth Simulator

For now, the Earth Simulator is being used to track global sea temperatures, rainfall and crustal movement to predict natural disasters over the next few centuries.

With its massive horsepower, the computer can model weather at 100 times the resolution of previous simulations, said Tetsuya Sato, director-general of the Earth Simulator Center.

Built by the Tokyo-based NEC Corp., the computer can already predict the path of a typhoon or a volcanic eruption with remarkable precision. Earthquakes are still tough to pinpoint and forecast, but likely epicenters are being identified and their damage mapped out to determine which dams, buildings and highways need reinforcing.

Source: Wired News

The fastest supercomputer so far "BlueGene" is able to do above 280 trillion floating-point calculations per second.
Official homepage: BlueGene

That means the computer can handle 360 trillion calculations per second, which is equivalent to every man, woman and child on Earth performing 60,000 calculations per second. To put it another way, BlueGene can write the entire book collection in the Library of Congress in less than 10 minutes.

Source: sfgate.com

For the last few years, the most powerful superomputer ever created has been a result of IBM research and development efforts, and BlueGene has been used in the Energy Department facility in Rochester, USA. One of the last benchmarks performed in the BlueGene system revealed a new Linpack record of over 70,72 terraflops per second (which means around 70 trillion operations). The system included over 32,760 processors.

Source: sofpedia.com

BlueGene can do more than 280 trillion calculations a second. That's like every single person on Earth -- man, woman and child -- each doing 40,000 math problems in the blink of an eye.

Source:npr.org