Computer modeling

Etienne Demarly’s efforts in generating physically realistic computer simulations may soon enable current generation reactors to operate more efficiently.

Etienne Demarly: Mastering fluid flow and bubble boil

Through meticulous computations, nuclear science and engineering student Etienne Demarly simulates conditions inside a nuclear reactor.

July 9, 2018

MIT’s Cheetah 3 robot can climb stairs and step over obstacles without the help of cameras or visual sensors.

“Blind” Cheetah 3 robot can climb stairs littered with obstacles

Improved design may be used for exploring disaster zones and other dangerous or inaccessible environments.

July 4, 2018

When PhD student Tiziana Smith isn’t at her computer refining or running her models, she can be found organizing activities and initiatives to help her fellow graduate students find mentors and become leaders themselves.

How many people can China feed?

Graduate student Tiziana Smith studies links between water availability and crop yields in the world’s most populous country.

May 30, 2018

WHOI and MIT researchers deploy an autonomous underwater vehicle to test new navigation and sensing algorithms.

Fundamental equations guide marine robots to optimal sampling sites

New principled approach helps autonomous underwater vehicles explore the ocean in an intelligent, energy-efficient manner.

May 9, 2018

New software identified five different families of microstructures, each defined by a shared “skeleton” (blue), that optimally traded off three mechanical properties.

Automating materials design

With new approach, researchers specify desired properties of a material, and a computer system generates a structure accordingly.

February 2, 2018

To solve complex problems, data scientists must shepherd their raw data through a series of steps, each one requiring many human-driven decisions. The last step in the process, deciding on a modeling technique, is particularly crucial.

Auto-tuning data science: New research streamlines machine learning

A new automated machine-learning system performs as well or better than its human counterparts — and works 100 times faster.

December 19, 2017

As part of an investigation into the nature of humans' physical intuitions, MIT researchers trained a neural network to predict how unstably stacked blocks would respond to the force of gravity.

Computer systems predict objects’ responses to physical forces

Results may help explain how humans do the same thing.

December 13, 2017

Large power transformers are particularly vulnerable to extreme weather conditions exacerbated by climate change.

Preventing the next blackout

An MIT study projects the potential impact of climate change on large power transformers in U.S. Northeast.

December 5, 2017

A slight mismatch between the hexagonal structures of molybdenum disulfide and tungsten diselenide creates a strain that can be released by the formation of a "5|7 dislocation," in which two hexagons collapse to form a pentagon and a heptagon. Reactions with molybdenum disulfide in the environment cause the dislocation to move deeper into the tungsten diselenide, drawing a nanowire of molybdenum d...

New nanowires are just a few atoms thick

Subnanometer-scale channels in 2-D materials could point toward future electronics, solar cells.

December 4, 2017

“You’re rolling the dice every year,” says professor Kerry Emanuel. “And we believe the odds of a flood like Harvey are changing.” Pictured is an aerial view of Houston during the Hurricane Harvey flooding.

Texas’ odds of Harvey-scale rainfall to increase by end of century

Study finds state’s annual risk of extreme rainfall will rise from 1 to 18 percent.

November 13, 2017

A new MIT computer system speeds computations involving “sparse tensors,” multidimensional data arrays that consist mostly of zeroes.

Faster big-data analysis

System for performing “tensor algebra” offers 100-fold speedups over previous software packages.

October 30, 2017

“I think that the concept of massive and open data science can be really leveraged for areas where there’s a strong social impact but not necessarily a single profit-making or government organization that is coordinating responses,” MIT graduate student Micah Smith says about FeatureHub.

Crowdsourcing big-data analysis

Web-based system automatically evaluates proposals from far-flung data scientists.

October 30, 2017

The 2017 MIT recipients of the U.S. Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowships are (clockwise from top left) Peter Ahrens, Miriam Rathbun, Annie Yuan Wei, and Kevin Silmore.

Grad students earn Department of Energy computational fellowships

Ahrens, Rathbun, Silmore, and Wei are recognized for tackling complex science and engineering problems of national importance.

October 11, 2017

Engineers at MIT have developed a new model to simulate dynamic soaring, and have used it to identify the optimal flight pattern that an albatross should take in order to harvest the most wind and energy. They found that as an albatross banks or turns, it should do so in shallow arcs, keeping almost to a straight, forward trajectory.

Engineers identify key to albatross’ marathon flight

Flying in shallow arcs helps birds stay aloft with less effort.

October 10, 2017

This model illustrates the three-dimensional upward spiral of North Atlantic deep water through the Southern Ocean.

Deep waters spiral upward around Antarctica

Research reveals the upwelling pathways and timescales of deep, overturning waters in the Southern Ocean.

September 26, 2017

MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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