New ANSYS HPC to Boost Productivity for Simulation-driven Product Development

By DE Editors

ANSYS, Inc. has announced plans to deliver ANSYS HPC, a solution set that will enable customers to obtain enhanced insight and productivity through expanded use of high-performance computing (HPC) with engineering simulation. ANSYS HPC provides a single scalable HPC solution that supports the full ANSYS portfolio.

Large-scale simulation of the surface pressures on the sail of an America’s Cup racing yacht. Such analysis has the potential to include some of the most complex physics effects possible, with hydrodynamic and aerodynamic fluid flow and stiffness among the structural physics involved. Resolving large problems requires the use of HPC. Image courtesy Ignazio Maria Viola and ANSYS, Inc.

In contrast to single-point solutions that require separate licenses for each solver, the new ANSYS HPC products will provide a cross-physics parallel computing capability that supports structural, fluids,  thermal, and electromagnetics simulation in a single solution. Customers who need to combine multiphysics with HPC to address complex product development challenges stand to benefit from the consolidated ANSYS HPC package, according to the company.

In addition, the new ANSYS HPC solution will encourage and facilitate the use of larger-scale parallel processing for high-fidelity simulation by making it more accessible to companies both large and small. Parallel processing with ANSYS HPC allows you to consider higher-fidelity models—including more geometric detail, larger systems, and more complex physics. The ANSYS HPC solution will be fully enabled with the upcoming ANSYS 12.1 release, and the cross-physics capability is now commercially available to customers.

ANSYS HPC provides parallel processing on a range of computing platforms. You can use ANSYS HPC on your multicore workstation,  substantially increasing throughput on single jobs. For workgroups or multiple job execution, clusters running Linux or Microsoft Windows HPC Server 2008 will provide scalable capacity and performance.

ANSYS reports that its largest fluids benchmarks (see link below) yield nearly linear scaling out to 2048 processors, reducing turnaround time from hours or days to just minutes and that mechanical simulations can achieve teraflop compute rates on hundreds of processors. The company adds that, depending on problem size, its users typically employ 32 to 128 processors for fluids analyses, while more complex mechanical simulations range from 16 to 32 cores.

“In the past, only the largest enterprises could afford a high level of parallel processing. The new ANSYS HPC solution will enable users across the spectrum to consider more detailed, accurate, and complete simulations than ever before—yielding the kind of detailed understanding that is critical to simulation driven product development,” said Jim Cashman,  president and CEO of ANSYS, Inc., in a press statement. “By providing a single scalable HPC solution that supports the full ANSYS portfolio, we are empowering customers to solve their most challenging design problems. The new solution will have built-in flexibility so customers can use their HPC licenses wherever they have computing resources and people.”

ANSYS HPC software is Intel Cluster Ready, and it supports a variety of load managers and job schedulers, including Platform LSF, PBSPro,  and Microsoft Windows HPC Server. The ANSYS HPC solution will be fully enabled with the upcoming ANSYS 12.1 release, and the cross-physics capability is now commercially available. For more information, visit the ANSYS HPC web page.

See the ANSYS HPC benchmarks.

Go to the ANSYS HPC demo room (registration required).

Register and watch an on-demand webinar entitled “ANSYS 12.0 HPC Performance and ROI.”.

See why DE’s Editors selected ANSYS HPC software as their Pick of the Week.