Imagine being able to fly one of the world’s fastest aircraft in a digital environment. In this virtual world, you can test the viability of the plane by adding or removing environmental and artificial variables. Or simulate the performance of a jet engine to reduce fuel consumption and wear. Aircraft tested in these environments are more efficient, safe and durable. Existing craft are proactively maintained and the next generation is designed for future air mobility needs.
These mirror-of-reality digital environments, also called digital twins, are based on fundamental principles of modelling, physics, mathematics and computer science. They come to life through computer-aided engineering (CAE) enhanced by high-performance computing (HPC). This new configuration has the capacity and speed to handle data-intensive simulation applications in a wide variety of industries. The result is a quantum leap in performance and capability.
Today’s Engineering Challenges and the Promise of Numerical Simulation
While the expectation of engineers to design more (better and faster) has not diminished, the industry faces monumental challenges. Today’s engineering workforce is more distributed than ever, which can hamper collaboration and performance across teams. Engineers are also responsible for producing more fuel-efficient products, reducing emissions and optimizing maintenance, repair and overhaul windows to reduce costs.
As engineering teams stretch beyond their capabilities, HPC-powered digital simulation helps ease the load. Engineers can collaborate with each other and perform their work in a virtual environment, improving the speed and efficiency of engineering workloads. Simulation gives engineers the power to see how their designs will perform in millions of real-world scenarios, while reducing or even eliminating the need for costly physical testing. Ultimately, helping engineers improve product safety, durability and performance.
The engineers of the British group McLaren use simulation and prototyping to design faster and more aerodynamic vehicles. The engineering team runs HPC-powered simulations based on up to 100,000 data points per second from Formula 1 racing cars as they move at up to 200 miles per hour. McLaren engineers are building 3D digital twins and 3D printing models for ongoing rapid prototyping and to generate analysis to improve the car’s performance in subsequent races. The results of these efforts lead to rapid prototyping and component testing.
HPC for power plant design
Simulation was the answer for California-based engineering firm RJM International, a provider of emissions reduction and combustion enhancement technologies, serving large combustion facilities like refineries and steel mills. The company runs analysis and operational simulations involving a series of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) on an HPC cluster with the goal of helping plants operate more efficiently and limit emissions through the adoption of co- combustion, fuels from biomass or new generation energy pellets.
RJM International engineers use audits and detailed datasets to create accurate models of power plant performance. The team uses Ansys simulation software integrated with Dell’s HPC infrastructure. This solution allows engineers to use CFD data to design, test and prove new solutions before they are installed. It’s also modular, so engineers can easily deploy a system optimized for the compute, storage, networking, and software required by their specific HPC workloads.
Simulations that used to take a week are now completed in a day, using 86% less compute time than the company’s previous IT infrastructure. The cluster also allows RJM to perform a variety of large, sophisticated calculations to solve other complex engineering challenges. Engineers can quickly and cost-effectively validate product integrity before prototyping by modeling behavior through real-world variables.
Simplify and Accelerate HPC
Retooling an IT environment for high-performance engineering workloads can be streamlined by engineering-validated architectural designs that include servers, storage, networks, software, and services in customizable configurations. They are designed to simplify and speed up the configuration of HPC clusters whose design has already been tested and adjusted for CAE.
As teams continue to work remotely and CAE software grows in sophistication, engineers are leading the way in adopting advanced computing technologies to meet new challenges. HPC is not unique. The right solution configuration depends on a specific combination of applications and simulation types, with a variety of options to consider. But once these hurdles are overcome, HPC plays a major role in advancing the use of simulation in engineering, accelerating time to market and contributing to the design of innovative and better products.
For more information on using HPC-powered engineering simulation tools, click here.
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