Overview

PLATO is an object-oriented, massively parallel framework for optimization-based design being developed at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL). Representatives from SNL's PLATO team will hold a short training course that will cover the fundamental steps needed to use the tools available in PLATO Engine and PLATO Analyze. Indeed, this introductory course will demonstrate how to install the PLATO tools, setup and solve an optimization problem, and post-process the results.

The PLATO training course will only cover the open source tools. The open source tools do not come with a graphical user interface and are run from the terminal window.

You can indicate whether you will participate in the PLATO training when you register for the conference.

Prerequisites

  • Familiarity with nonlinear programming

  • Familiarity with multidisciplinary design optimization

  • Prior experience with topology and shape optimization is helpful

Teaching Method

Lectures and computer sessions. Computers will not be provided; therefore, bring your own computer if you want to validate the knowledge acquired during the training session.

Notes

The PLATO tools do not build on Windows machines since they are tailored for high performance computing platforms. PLATO Engine builds on Linux and Mac operating systems. PLATO Analyze only builds on Linux systems since the partial differential equation (PDE) solver runs only on GPU platforms. Efforts are ongoing to enable non-GPU PDE solvers.