Workflows for wind tunnel grid applications

Description/Abstract

Aerodynamicists use wind tunnels to aid the research, design and development of products such as aircraft, cars, and yachts, amongst others. The data acquired from such tests must be acquired, collated, processed and analysed in a timely fashion to maximise productivity. In many scenarios a variety of data acquisition systems are used, and managing the overall testing process can be challenging. The wind tunnel grid project aims to provide an extensible, network-based system that can provide a more seamless working environment for scientists and engineers, so that they can focus on the data analysis and interpretation part of the process.
In this paper we describe the development and implementation of the wind tunnel grid system workflow. By exploiting Windows Workflow Foundation we are able to provide an easy-to-use and extensible workflow environment (wind tunnel grid workflow framework) that meets the requirements of both the developer and end-user well. By leveraging the .NET-based CoG Toolkit previously developed, interoperability with Globus grid services is demonstrated.