SCIENCE

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA -- Volvo Cars' department of development in Gothenburg, Sweden, has invested in an SGI(TM) Origin(TM) 3800 server from SGI in order to increase computing performance when conducting crash simulations as part of the development of safer cars. The agreement with Volvo Cars is SGI's biggest deal so far in Sweden and will include consulting services. Volvo Cars' Safety Center, which includes approximately 25 computational engineers, uses the computer to evaluate construction proposals during the night. They are then analyzed the following day. With the SGI Origin 3800 system, crash simulations can be done more thoroughly because of an increased computing performance of more than 30%. "Our investment in a new SGI server helps us achieve our long-term strategy to maintain the leading position in crash simulation and safety," says Anders Broo, project manager at Volvo Cars. "Our safety strategy includes two areas: high-performance computing in an early phase of the development of a new car model and real-life testing. The extra computing performance delivered by SGI Origin 3800 will give us the opportunity to strengthen our advanced Safety Center in Gothenburg and helps us guarantee that the end product, the cars, will be dependably safe." SGI was chosen as system supplier after an evaluation at Ford in the U.S., where criteria were set for price, performance and knowledge. The SGI Origin 3800 server has 128 CPUs, 128GB of memory and two 5TB disks. The code for the software Radioss has been specially adapted for use on RISC-based CPUs because crash simulations on RISC-based CPUs are faster than on vector-based CPUs. This marks one of the first times that this version of Radioss is being used for crash simulations in car development projects. "Volvo's investment in simulation capacity from SGI further strengthens our position as the market leader within computer simulations," says Magnus Soderlind, country manager, SGI Sweden. "Our close and global cooperation with Ford opens up great possibilities for Volvo Cars to create synergies within simulations, which in turn will lead to shorter lead times and lower development costs." For further information visit www.sgi.com