The goal at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Facility
is to provide sufficient computing
power to enable scientists and engineers to test their
designs in a “virtual wind tunnel.” Traditional wind
tunnel testing is time consuming and expensive —
requiring the construction or alteration of physical
models for each test — and even the most powerful
wind tunnel cannot simulate the conditions of the
launch and reentry of space vehicles.
Until the arrival of the 1,024-processor SGI Origin
3800 system, the computing power needed to make
the virtual wind tunnel a reality was unavailable.
Complete modeling of one aircraft configuration during landing required up to a year on a Cray C-90, imposing
serious limits on the use of simulation. The Origin
3800 system can run the same configuration in a
matter of hours, so, for the first time, scientists
can routinely use simulation to validate their designs under
varying conditions. “The Origin architecture has
created a revolution in computational fluid dynamic at
NASA and will fundamentally change the way aircraft
are designed in the future,” said Jim Taft, co-director,
Terascale applications group.
The ability to do advanced simulation has already
proved its value in NASA’s mision to design a new
reusable launch vehicle to replace the space shuttle.
During simulation of the X-37 drone, designed to be
dropped from the space shuttle to test reentry, a
serious flaw was discovered that would have led to
catastrophic failure. Millions of dollars and months of
time were saved because of the advanced capabilities
enabled by the Origin 3800 architecture.
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