EDINBURGH, Scotland and DENVER, Co., Feb. 5 – DEM Solutions, the company setting the standard for engineering application of discrete element method (DEM) simulation, today announced the implementation of EDEM Simulation Software onto SGI UV, the ’Big Brain’ computer, to deliver the industry’s first large-scale bulk particle simulation using commercially-available DEM software. Leveraging the compute capabilities of the world’s largest shared memory system, DEM Solutions’ customers and EDEM users will be able to realize the full potential of EDEM Software for simulation-based product design and optimization of equipment that handle or process bulk particles, such as powders, granules, tablets and aggregates.

“Bulk particles, also known as bulk materials or bulk solids, are handled and processed in every major manufacturing and process industry, including, pharmaceutical, food processing, consumer packaged goods, mining, minerals processing, metals manufacturing, and construction and agricultural machinery,” stated Dr John Favier, CEO and Founder of DEM Solutions. “DEM simulation provides a ‘real world’ level of detail of bulk particle behavior and interaction with equipment that surpass other CAE technologies, and as a result requires more data-intensive computing capability. SGI UV offers the large-scale computing capability required for data-intensive DEM simulation, and like our EDEM Simulation Software, offers a scalable and cost-efficient solution to support the increasing adoption of DEM as a key engineering technology by our blue chip customer base across the many process and manufacturing industries.”

EDEM implemented on SGI UV is the industry’s first large-scale shared memory parallel DEM simulation, on a scalable Shared Memory Parallel (SMP) computer architecture using commercially available DEM software. The initial implementation on an SGI UV running 128 cores and 2TB of memory enables a simulation of 10 million model elements with further scaling to larger models using bigger SGI UV architectures planned. This capability expands the engineering and operational benefits of DEM to industry, including:

• Reducing engineering design cycle time
• Providing new information not obtainable from measurement of the bulk behavior
• Opening up new possibilities for product and process innovation contributing to effective product and process life cycle management

“DEM Solutions is widely recognized as the leader in the engineering application of DEM simulation for manufacturing and process industries, and they are the first to deploy SGI UV in this application area,” stated Christian Tanasescu, vice president of applications and solutions engineering at SGI. EDEM on SGI UV will provide EDEM users unlimited scaling of simulation of bulk particles with the ease of use of a workstation. We look forward to working with the EDEM developers now and into the future to bring enhanced performance of the software on our SGI UV shared memory platform.”

Dr Favier added “We worked with SGI because of their proven leadership in technical computing solutions that deliver strong performance for a wide range of commercial applications. In our testing, some projects that would take months are now taking only a week or two using an SGI UV system. The SGI UV solution will provide our customers in the manufacturing and process industries with the most cost-efficient large-scale computing solution capable of delivering the benefits of EDEM’s advanced simulation capabilities today, and is scalable to meet the greater simulation requirements of future developments and product enhancements.”

About SGI

SGI, the trusted leader in technical computing, is focused on helping customers solve their most demanding business and technology challenges. 

About DEM Solutions

DEM Solutions is the market leader in simulation software and services for the design and optimization of bulk particle handling and processing equipment. The Company’s ground-breaking Discrete Element Method (“DEM”) simulation technology and expertise provides advanced engineering and operational benefits of the Company’s unique predictive modeling capability to all industries handling and processing bulk materials, enabling them to optimize equipment performance, increase productivity and operational efficiencies, and enhance product innovation. In addition to market leading EDEM simulation software platform and EDEM BulkSim software, the Company provides engineering support services to blue-chip companies around the world in mining, energy, equipment manufacturing and process industries.

Founded in 2003, the Company is headquartered in Edinburgh (UK) with offices in Denver (USA), Yokohama (Japan) and Shenzhen (China) supporting direct sales in Europe, Americas, Japan, China, and Australia, and channel sales in the rest of the world. DEM Solutions also works with a network of industry-expert engineering service partners worldwide supporting customers in deployment of EDEM simulation technology to address engineering challenges involving bulk particles.

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Source: DEM Solutions