Aircraft Simulations Push Computing to the Cutting Edge

By Nicole Hemsoth

January 26, 2012

Designing an aircraft is one of the more expensive endeavors in the manufacturing business. Complex engineering, strict safety regulations, and high levels of quality control, all conspire to make such development time consuming and labor intensive. It’s no surprise that large manufacturers like Boeing and Airbus have turned to computing, and especially high performance computing, to streamline the effort.

To get a sense of the current state of the art, we asked Guus Dekkers, CIO of EADS and Airbus, to shed some light on the computational challenges involved. In the interview that follows, Dekkers, who will be delivering the opening keynote on this subject at ISC’12 in Hamburg, Germany, explains how HPC is being applied to aircraft simulation today and what the future might bring.

HPCwire: Before coming to Airbus and EADS, you worked in the automotive industry. How do these industries differ in their need for, and use of, high performance computing?

Guus Dekkers: Due to the complexity of both the product and the development process, the aeronautics industry has the need to pre-load and virtualize its development process far more than is the case today in the automotive industry. Whereas in an automotive environment the number of prototypes built has been substantially reduced during the last decade, a new car model will nevertheless still see a substantial number of physical models being built. This compares to a handful of extremely expensive prototypes in the aeronautics industry, with only few — and costly! — capabilities to correct if needed.

Also the number of engineering domains in which advanced simulation is being used is far more substantial than in automotive. Because the aeronautics industry needs to address advanced technical challenges unknown to the automotive industry (ex: lightning stroke, ice accreditation prediction, calculation of dynamic loads during different flight phases, …), and also because the establishment of a physical mock-up is in the automotive industry at times the far easier and efficient way to take design decisions.

HPCwire: Is the use of HPC for aircraft simulations actually enabling engineers to come up with better, more complex designs or is its main benefit cost reduction, via the replacement of physical prototyping and testing?

Dekkers: I would say it is both. Today the engineers do no longer limit themselves to simulate an aircraft’s behavior as a static model, but use the availability of vast high performance computing power to calculate the optimal scenario under different, partially dynamic situations. This allows them to optimize important safety, environmental and performance criteria like fuel-burn, noise, aerodynamics optimizations and performance prediction for multiple scenario’s, which has been impossible in the current precision up until recently. This clearly allows us to design better aircraft.

Certainly, HPC simulation allows as well reducing physical testing — with especially reduced wind-tunnel testing — which helps to slice cost. But ultimately, being [able] to design better products pays off more.

HPCwire: What is the biggest challenge in performing aircraft simulations today? And how is it being addressed?

Dekkers: The challenges are multifold. First and most basic, the compatibility of the simulation software with the hardware architecture. This is why most companies prefer having multiple types of architectures to deal with multiple requirements.

The calibration of the simulation algorithm, its results, and its predictions with real-life also represents a challenge, especially for newer materials like carbon fiber. Here we ultimately have no other option than to validate through physical mockups.

Last but not least, linking both input and output of such a simulation cycle to the “right” aircraft configuration is not evident, that is, how do I make sure the calculations are based on the right digital mockup configuration and how can I assure that its results are reproducible for a very long time-frame?

HPCwire: Are there particular aspects of aircraft design that simulations are particularly good at optimizing?

Dekkers: Traditionally over three-fourths of our HPC capacities have been used for aerodynamic optimizations, which is not a surprise to anyone, I believe. However, we currently see a clear trend shifting its use toward multi-disciplinary design and optimization, aero-acoustics and system integration. This does not mean that the traditional area of using HPC is reducing its usage, but the other use cases simply seem to grow faster.

HPCwire: Can you tell us a little about Airbus’ FuSim program — what it’s about and what are the expectations?

Dekkers: FuSim is for Future Simulation concept. It is a strategic research & technology program launched in 2006 to drastically change the aerodynamic development process.

FuSim objectives are to develop innovative computer-based simulation systems to increase the capability of fluid mechanics design processes by up to a million times, leading to significantly reduced product development lead times, as well as enhanced product optimization through investigation of breakthrough technologies such as flow control. Needless to say, this requires endless computing capacity.

Progress achieved during first phase of Fusim from 2006 to 2011 demonstrated an overall 10^3 improvement in computational fluid dynamics efficiency versus its 2005 basis.

The next big step is Megasim, planned for 2015, which targets another 10^3 improvement in CFD efficiency versus today’s basis, that is, a 10^6 improvement in comparison to 2005.

HPCwire: How important are government and academic partnerships to Airbus and EADS?

Dekkers: Especially in the area of flight physics we have long-lasting partnerships with academic institutes and programs. In this area, I specifically would like to mention C2A2S2E in Germany, Mosart in France, CFMS in UK and DOVRES in Spain.

Our typical work with academia focuses on research methods — how to improve aerodynamics analysis and methods implementation and how to best apply them.

In addition to these initiatives we are looking at an EU funded project, called PRACE, which is federating HPC research infrastructure in Europe, in order to see how the aerospace industry can benefit from European petaflops computing capacity, and eventually access exaflops for the most challenging unsteady aerodynamics and multiphysics simulations.

HPCwire: Which new or upcoming HPC technologies and developments do you think will be most significant for the aerospace industry?

Dekkers: In the area of HPC environments, we will have to deal with the strong growth in I/O management and storage. Between 2008 and 2013, I/O volumes are growing from 5 GB/calculation to 5,000 GB/calculation, which all need to be transferred, stored and displayed. Also the visualization of such data volumes represents a true challenge, not only due to its sheer size but also by having to compress the meaningful data onto available display sizes.

Also handling the physical characteristics of such HPC environments are more and more challenging. Our 200 teraflops container solutions consume several hundred kilowatts in just a couple of cubic meters of space, and need to be cooled in an environmental-friendly way. Here we will certainly need even newer technologies then we have today.

Last but not least, I believe that the efficiency of high performance computing will depend at least as much on the exponential efficiency of the algorithms used, which I would expect to contribute in the same order-of-magnitude as the performance of HPC from hardware innovations. Code must clearly be further parallelized to take benefit from the new architectures — we today still have a lot of “old fashion” code on our systems — and needs to be continuously adapted to take maximum benefit of the newest processor technologies.

Subscribe to HPCwire's Weekly Update!

Be the most informed person in the room! Stay ahead of the tech trends with industry updates delivered to you every week!

MLPerf Inference 4.0 Results Showcase GenAI; Nvidia Still Dominates

March 28, 2024

There were no startling surprises in the latest MLPerf Inference benchmark (4.0) results released yesterday. Two new workloads — Llama 2 and Stable Diffusion XL — were added to the benchmark suite as MLPerf continues Read more…

Q&A with Nvidia’s Chief of DGX Systems on the DGX-GB200 Rack-scale System

March 27, 2024

Pictures of Nvidia's new flagship mega-server, the DGX GB200, on the GTC show floor got favorable reactions on social media for the sheer amount of computing power it brings to artificial intelligence.  Nvidia's DGX Read more…

Call for Participation in Workshop on Potential NSF CISE Quantum Initiative

March 26, 2024

Editor’s Note: Next month there will be a workshop to discuss what a quantum initiative led by NSF’s Computer, Information Science and Engineering (CISE) directorate could entail. The details are posted below in a Ca Read more…

Waseda U. Researchers Reports New Quantum Algorithm for Speeding Optimization

March 25, 2024

Optimization problems cover a wide range of applications and are often cited as good candidates for quantum computing. However, the execution time for constrained combinatorial optimization applications on quantum device Read more…

NVLink: Faster Interconnects and Switches to Help Relieve Data Bottlenecks

March 25, 2024

Nvidia’s new Blackwell architecture may have stolen the show this week at the GPU Technology Conference in San Jose, California. But an emerging bottleneck at the network layer threatens to make bigger and brawnier pro Read more…

Who is David Blackwell?

March 22, 2024

During GTC24, co-founder and president of NVIDIA Jensen Huang unveiled the Blackwell GPU. This GPU itself is heavily optimized for AI work, boasting 192GB of HBM3E memory as well as the the ability to train 1 trillion pa Read more…

MLPerf Inference 4.0 Results Showcase GenAI; Nvidia Still Dominates

March 28, 2024

There were no startling surprises in the latest MLPerf Inference benchmark (4.0) results released yesterday. Two new workloads — Llama 2 and Stable Diffusion Read more…

Q&A with Nvidia’s Chief of DGX Systems on the DGX-GB200 Rack-scale System

March 27, 2024

Pictures of Nvidia's new flagship mega-server, the DGX GB200, on the GTC show floor got favorable reactions on social media for the sheer amount of computing po Read more…

NVLink: Faster Interconnects and Switches to Help Relieve Data Bottlenecks

March 25, 2024

Nvidia’s new Blackwell architecture may have stolen the show this week at the GPU Technology Conference in San Jose, California. But an emerging bottleneck at Read more…

Who is David Blackwell?

March 22, 2024

During GTC24, co-founder and president of NVIDIA Jensen Huang unveiled the Blackwell GPU. This GPU itself is heavily optimized for AI work, boasting 192GB of HB Read more…

Nvidia Looks to Accelerate GenAI Adoption with NIM

March 19, 2024

Today at the GPU Technology Conference, Nvidia launched a new offering aimed at helping customers quickly deploy their generative AI applications in a secure, s Read more…

The Generative AI Future Is Now, Nvidia’s Huang Says

March 19, 2024

We are in the early days of a transformative shift in how business gets done thanks to the advent of generative AI, according to Nvidia CEO and cofounder Jensen Read more…

Nvidia’s New Blackwell GPU Can Train AI Models with Trillions of Parameters

March 18, 2024

Nvidia's latest and fastest GPU, codenamed Blackwell, is here and will underpin the company's AI plans this year. The chip offers performance improvements from Read more…

Nvidia Showcases Quantum Cloud, Expanding Quantum Portfolio at GTC24

March 18, 2024

Nvidia’s barrage of quantum news at GTC24 this week includes new products, signature collaborations, and a new Nvidia Quantum Cloud for quantum developers. Wh Read more…

Alibaba Shuts Down its Quantum Computing Effort

November 30, 2023

In case you missed it, China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba has shut down its quantum computing research effort. It’s not entirely clear what drove the change. Read more…

Nvidia H100: Are 550,000 GPUs Enough for This Year?

August 17, 2023

The GPU Squeeze continues to place a premium on Nvidia H100 GPUs. In a recent Financial Times article, Nvidia reports that it expects to ship 550,000 of its lat Read more…

Shutterstock 1285747942

AMD’s Horsepower-packed MI300X GPU Beats Nvidia’s Upcoming H200

December 7, 2023

AMD and Nvidia are locked in an AI performance battle – much like the gaming GPU performance clash the companies have waged for decades. AMD has claimed it Read more…

DoD Takes a Long View of Quantum Computing

December 19, 2023

Given the large sums tied to expensive weapon systems – think $100-million-plus per F-35 fighter – it’s easy to forget the U.S. Department of Defense is a Read more…

Synopsys Eats Ansys: Does HPC Get Indigestion?

February 8, 2024

Recently, it was announced that Synopsys is buying HPC tool developer Ansys. Started in Pittsburgh, Pa., in 1970 as Swanson Analysis Systems, Inc. (SASI) by John Swanson (and eventually renamed), Ansys serves the CAE (Computer Aided Engineering)/multiphysics engineering simulation market. Read more…

Choosing the Right GPU for LLM Inference and Training

December 11, 2023

Accelerating the training and inference processes of deep learning models is crucial for unleashing their true potential and NVIDIA GPUs have emerged as a game- Read more…

Intel’s Server and PC Chip Development Will Blur After 2025

January 15, 2024

Intel's dealing with much more than chip rivals breathing down its neck; it is simultaneously integrating a bevy of new technologies such as chiplets, artificia Read more…

Baidu Exits Quantum, Closely Following Alibaba’s Earlier Move

January 5, 2024

Reuters reported this week that Baidu, China’s giant e-commerce and services provider, is exiting the quantum computing development arena. Reuters reported � Read more…

Leading Solution Providers

Contributors

Comparing NVIDIA A100 and NVIDIA L40S: Which GPU is Ideal for AI and Graphics-Intensive Workloads?

October 30, 2023

With long lead times for the NVIDIA H100 and A100 GPUs, many organizations are looking at the new NVIDIA L40S GPU, which it’s a new GPU optimized for AI and g Read more…

Shutterstock 1179408610

Google Addresses the Mysteries of Its Hypercomputer 

December 28, 2023

When Google launched its Hypercomputer earlier this month (December 2023), the first reaction was, "Say what?" It turns out that the Hypercomputer is Google's t Read more…

AMD MI3000A

How AMD May Get Across the CUDA Moat

October 5, 2023

When discussing GenAI, the term "GPU" almost always enters the conversation and the topic often moves toward performance and access. Interestingly, the word "GPU" is assumed to mean "Nvidia" products. (As an aside, the popular Nvidia hardware used in GenAI are not technically... Read more…

Shutterstock 1606064203

Meta’s Zuckerberg Puts Its AI Future in the Hands of 600,000 GPUs

January 25, 2024

In under two minutes, Meta's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, laid out the company's AI plans, which included a plan to build an artificial intelligence system with the eq Read more…

Google Introduces ‘Hypercomputer’ to Its AI Infrastructure

December 11, 2023

Google ran out of monikers to describe its new AI system released on December 7. Supercomputer perhaps wasn't an apt description, so it settled on Hypercomputer Read more…

China Is All In on a RISC-V Future

January 8, 2024

The state of RISC-V in China was discussed in a recent report released by the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. The report, entitled "E Read more…

Intel Won’t Have a Xeon Max Chip with New Emerald Rapids CPU

December 14, 2023

As expected, Intel officially announced its 5th generation Xeon server chips codenamed Emerald Rapids at an event in New York City, where the focus was really o Read more…

IBM Quantum Summit: Two New QPUs, Upgraded Qiskit, 10-year Roadmap and More

December 4, 2023

IBM kicks off its annual Quantum Summit today and will announce a broad range of advances including its much-anticipated 1121-qubit Condor QPU, a smaller 133-qu Read more…

  • arrow
  • Click Here for More Headlines
  • arrow
HPCwire