Opel Using Fastest Computers in Car Industry
FOR RELEASE: December 10, 2001Opel Using Fastest Computers in Car Industry
Rüsselsheim - Engineers at Opel's International Technical Development Center (ITDC) have started to work with the first of six new high-performance computers. The "super computers", each with an eight-digit DM price tag, will be used for simulating crash tests and investigating vehicle aerodynamics. They are capable of performing more than 500 billion individual calculations a second, putting them among the very best on the international list of high-performance computers, alongside the systems used, for example, by the leading international research institutes. Opel now has the most powerful computer system in the automobile industry. It can run highly complex simulations literally 'over night', and have all the results available at the start of the next working day, instead of the two days needed by the previous system. The effect is to shorten development cycles, making it possible to perform even more calculation runs and optimize vehicle design.
This is the first installation of the IBM 690 "Regatta pSeries eServer" in Europe and in the international automobile industry. Opel chose an IBM system following the good results obtained with the previous system in the development of the all-new Vectra.
New Opportunities with the Latest High-Performance Computers
Opel has considerable experience with high-performance computers, starting with the "Cray" super-computer that went into operation in 1984. The latest super-computers make it possible to reduce the number of cost-intensive vehicle prototypes. In addition, when linked to 'digital mockup', dynamic processes in and around the car can be simulated virtually, thus providing the engineers and designers with a uniform, constantly up-dated database from which to work. Although the simulation results cannot entirely replace real-life test driving and crash tests, the data supplied by the computer helps the experts plan and prepare for these tests and enables further improvements in quality.
Opel's parent company General Motors (GM) has ordered computers of the same type and will begin to operate them early next year. For many years now, Opel and GM have used identical data formats worldwide, to ensure smooth cooperation and reap the full benefit of synergy effects. Purchase contracts for the new systems were signed a year ago, long before the computers first became available. The declared aim was to reduce the time needed for simulation runs and obtain a definite increase in computing capacity.
Technical data:
| Type | IBM eServer pSeries 690 "Regatta" |
| Number of computers | 6 |
| Processor, cycle frequency | 32 "POWER4" CPUs each, 1.3 GHz |
| Main memory (RAM) | 64 GigaBytes each |
| Hard disk capacity | 1 TeraByte (1,000 GigaBytes) each |
| Tape storage | Total 96 TeraBytes (98,304 GigaBytes) |
| Operating system | IBM AIX 5 |
| Calculating capacity | More than 500 GFLOPS (500 billion floating-point calculations per second) |
| Weight | 1.2 metric tons per computer |