themes

The OPALE project was common to INRIA, CNRS and Université de Nice Sophia-Antipolis (UNSA). It was located in both Sophia-Antipolis and Grenoble INRIA Research Centers. It was launched on July 29th, 2002. It officially ended on December 31, 2014. The members of the project located in Grenoble subsequently joined the MOAIS project at INRIA. The members of the project located in Sophia-Antipolis formed the new ACUMES project.

The project had several objectives :

to analyze mathematically coupled PDE systems involving one or more disciplines in the perspective of geometrical optimization or control;
to construct, analyze and experiment numerical algorithms for the efficient solution of PDEs (coupling algorithms, model reduction), or multi-criterion optimization of discretized PDEs (gradient-based methods, evolutionary algorithms, hybrid methods, artificial neural networks, game strategies);
to develop parallel and distributed software integration platforms on computing grids and PC-clusters.

clusters
A grid computing testbed used by OPALE at INRIA.

Major applications included :

the multi-disciplinary optimization of aerodynamic configurations (wings in particular) in partnership with ONERA;
the geometrical optimization of antennas;
the development of Distributed High-Performance Computing Environments.