IDC announces first recipients of HPC Innovation Excellence Award

Jun 20, 2011

Eweld Portal Screenshot

EWI WeldPredictor Screenshot - Video Demo

OSC and EWI’s WeldPredictor portal included in initial award

 

Hamburg, Germany (June 20, 2011) - International Data Corporation (IDC) today announced the first recipients of the new HPC Innovation Excellence Award at the ISC'11 International Supercomputing Conference being held here this week.  The Ohio Supercomputer Center and Edison Welding Institute’s were recognized for the economic and scientific value of the EWI WeldPredictor® portal.

In September 2007, OSC and EWI launched the EWI WeldPredictor, an online weld simulation tool that offers EWI clients improved productivity and profitability through the use of this modeling and simulation portal. This on-demand portal allows welding engineers to evaluate the changes in temperature profiles, material microstructures, residual stresses, and welding distortion to reduce the extent of experimental trials during the design of welded joints, reducing expensive prototypes and speeding products to market. 

Work on the WeldPredictor portal reduced the time needed to solve large-scale finite element problems from four weeks to experimentally validate a weld to four hours using pre-determined, yet flexible computational methodologies.  In addition, the automated and online framework reduced the costs of computational weld mechanics simulation performed by a traditional engineering service by 10 to 50 fold, depending on the complexity of the project.

The HPC Innovation Excellence Award recognizes noteworthy achievements by users of High Performance Computing (HPC) technologies. The program's main goals are to showcase return on investment (ROI) and scientific success stories involving HPC; to help other users better understand the benefits of adopting HPC and justify HPC investments, especially for small and medium-size businesses (SMBs); to demonstrate the value of HPC to funding bodies and politicians; and to expand public support for increased HPC investments.

"IDC research has shown that HPC can greatly improve ROI and scientific advancement. The award program aims to collect a large set of success stories across many industries and application areas," said Earl Joseph, program vice president, High Performance Computing at IDC. "The initial winners achieved clear success in applying HPC to greatly improve business ROI, scientific advancement, and/or engineering successes. Many of the achievements also directly benefit society."

The award winners and project leaders announced at ISC11 are as follows (contact IDC for additional details about the projects):

  • Beijing Genomics Institute (China). BGI has created genomics solutions that speed science and commercialization. BGI estimates that the solutions have saved hundreds of thousands of dollars. Lin Fang.
     
  • BMI (U.S.). Fuel-saving aerodynamic truck design. Estimated savings of $5,000 per truck, per year. Mike Henderson.
     
  • Department of Defense HPC Modernization Program - DEW (U.S.). $13.8 million initial savings from virtual prototyping of countermeasures based on high-power microwaves, with much greater potential savings. Cray Henry.
     
  • Department of Defense HPC Modernization Program - COAMPS (U.S.). Significantly improved model for tropical cyclone forecasting. Documented savings of $6 million in one event alone, with far greater potential savings.
     
  • Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (U.S.). Achieved 17% improvement in fuel economy of Class 8 tractor-trailers. Potential savings: $24.2 billion annually. Kambiz Salari.
     
  • National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (U.S.). International study has enabled much more detailed and longer (100 years) record of past weather, to improved climate studies. Gilbert P. Compo and National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center.
     
  • Ohio Supercomputer Center-Edison Welding Institute (U.S.). Weld Predictor simulation tool cuts costs by an average 50% by minimizing experimental trials.
     
  • Shanghai Supercomputer Center (China). New method to determine molecular configurations of large molecules on metal surfaces. Tao Wang.
     
  • Shanghai Supercomputer Center (China). Substantial time and costs savings in engineering design. Jiancheng Wu.

“On behalf of Intel Corporation, I would like to commend all the winners of the HPC Innovation Excellence Award for leading the HPC community in showcasing the real-world benefits this community brings to society," said Raj Hazra, general manager, High Performance Computing, Intel.

"The Council on Competitiveness would like to congratulate all the winners of the inaugural HPC Innovation Excellence Award and thank all of those who submitted entries. The significance of HPC to the private sector will only be fully appreciated when examples such as these are recognized for their economic value," said Dr. Cynthia McIntyre, senior vice president for the HPC Initiative at the Council on Competitiveness.

IDC welcomes award entries from anywhere in the world. Entries may be submitted at any time by completing the brief form available at https://www.hpcuserforum.com/innovationaward/. New winners will be announced multiple times each year. Submissions must contain a clear description of the dollar value or scientific value received in order to qualify. The HPC User Forum Steering Committee performs an initial ranking of the submissions, after which domain and vertical experts are called on, as needed, to evaluate the submissions.

HPC Innovation Excellence Award sponsors include Adaptive Computing, Altair, AMD, Ansys, Appro, Avetec/DICE, the Boeing Company, the Council on Competitiveness, Department of Defense, Department of Energy, Ford Motor Company, Hewlett Packard, IBM, HPCwire, insideHPC, Intel, Microsoft, National Science Foundation, NCSA, Platform Computing, Scientific Computing, and SGI.

The next round of HPC Innovation Excellence Award winners will be announced at SC11 in November.

 

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About IDC
International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. IDC helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community to make fact-based decisions on technology purchases and business strategy. More than 1,000 IDC analysts provide global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries. For more than 47 years, IDC has provided strategic insights to help our clients achieve their key business objectives. IDC is a subsidiary of IDG, the world's leading technology media, research, and events company. You can learn more about IDC by visiting www.idc.com.

About OSC
The Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) addresses the rising computational demands of academic and industrial research communities by providing a robust shared infrastructure and proven expertise in advanced modeling, simulation and analysis. OSC empowers scientists with the vital resources essential to make extraordinary discoveries and innovations, partners with businesses and industry to leverage computational science as a competitive force in the global knowledge economy, and leads efforts to equip the workforce with the key technology skills required to secure 21st century jobs. For more, visit http://www.osc.edu/.