HPCwire: Audi Installs HP Supercomputer to Advance Auto Safety

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April 21, 2008

Audi Installs HP Supercomputer to Advance Auto Safety

PARIS, April 21 -- ESI Group, a pioneer and world-leading supplier of digital simulation software for prototyping and manufacturing processes, announced today that AUDI AG has implemented the auto industry's fastest supercomputer to advance safety standards. Crucial in optimizing car safety, the new system is based on ESI Group's PAM-CRASH 2G simulation software and an HP Cluster Platform 3000BL system, providing 15.36 teraflop/s of computing performance for crash simulation models of Audi. The supercomputer implementation places the leading premium car manufacturer at No. 123 on the TOP500 list of the world's fastest supercomputers, making it the auto industry's fastest system.

Audi partnered with ESI Group, a pioneer and world supplier of digital simulation software, to establish and drive its global vehicle safety projects around the world. Audi recognized the unparalleled computing efficiency and ease-of-use of the PAM CRASH 2G software and, as a result, the implementation improved the reliability of its crash safety and impact simulations. The software enhancements combined with compact, fast and power-efficient HP hardware has enabled Audi to run its refined models overnight, ensuring an effective design process that includes analysis of the safety elements of its vehicles. With the hardware and software investments, Audi has maintained its position as one of the safest vehicle manufacturers in the world, while it also improved its bottom line by reducing operating and power and cooling costs.

"ESI Group consistently provides its customers with affordable simulation turnaround time, greater accuracy and increasingly larger simulation models. This versatility allows Audi to find a balance between performance and the increased number of realistically simulated design variations for the complete car range," declared Peter Ulrich, crash safety and impact product manager, ESI Group.

The ease-of-use and latest algorithms in the PAM-CRASH 2G software encouraged Audi to raise their expectations for simulation design. For example, airbag models now routinely take into account fluid-structure interactions, leading to realistic interactions of the airbag with structures and occupants. Furthermore, prediction testing for material rupture, which usually requires high resolution models, can now be treated using a multi-scale approach. This helps save days of computing time and unnecessary costs.

Audi selected HP, a recognized industry leader in high-performance computing (HPC), to implement technology that would provide enhanced reliability, high server density and computing power. Audi installed the HP Cluster Platform 3000BL, a system built using 320 nodes based on HP ProLiant BL460c server blades and the InfiniBand cluster interconnect. This HPC system provides the computing power and speed needed to calculate the tremendous volume of data generated during the simulation process.

With the HP BladeSystem c-Class architecture coupled with the HP Dynamic Smart Cooling management solution, this supercomputer requires a quarter less floor space and consumes a quarter less power than a traditional rack-based configuration. In addition, the blade configuration provides simple hardware maintenance, cabling and system administration and has outstanding scalability.

"Providing Audi with a high-performance computing solution helps them design better and safer cars while reducing their power consumption and costs," said Paul Perez, vice president, scalable datacenter infrastructure, HP Enterprise Storage and Servers, Technology Solutions Group. "HP has a long history of knowledge and expertise in providing automotive customers high-performance computing that fosters innovation."

About ESI Group

ESI Group is a world-leading supplier and pioneer of digital simulation software for prototyping and manufacturing processes that take into account the physics of materials. ESI Group has developed an extensive suite of coherent, industry-oriented applications to realistically simulate a product's behavior during testing, to fine-tune manufacturing processes in accordance with desired product performance, and to evaluate the environment's impact on product performance. ESI Group's offer represents a unique collaborative solution with an open virtual engineering environment known as the Virtual Try-Out Space, enabling virtual prototypes to be improved in a continuous and collaborative manner while eliminating the need for physical prototypes during product development. The company employs over 700 high-level specialists worldwide covering more than 30 countries. ESI Group is listed in compartment C of Euronext Paris. For further information, visit www.esi-group.com.

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Source: ESI Group

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