Distributed Processing of High-Speed Stereo Particle Image Velocimetry Data With a Low Power Beowulf Cluster Available to Purchase

In this paper, we present our design of a portable cluster supercomputer created specifically for processing PIV image data. To make the system portable for a laboratory environment, the cluster computer is required to run on minimal power and be light weight. The final cluster design was based on the Intel® Quad-Core Xeon®X3210 low-power processors. This hardware setup allows for a total system consisting of twelve processing nodes with a total of 48 CPU cores, one master node with 5 TB of storage, and a Gigabit Ethernet connection. The total configuration along with the case has an approximate gross weight of 390 lbs and works well on one standard 120-V, 20-Amp electric circuit. With this cluster computer, a speedup of about 28 relative to standard serial processing of a PIV data set could be achieved.