Boeing Catches a Lift with High Performance Computing 1 High Performance Computing Case Study

Boeing Catches a Lift with High Performance Computing 1 High Performance Computing Case Study. Boeing Catches a Lift with High Performance Computing Boeing Catches a Lift with High Performance Computing This material is based on work supported by The Department of Energy under grant award DE-FG02-06ER25795. This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. 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Dreamliner is a registered trademark of Boeing. Copyright © 2009 Council on Competitiveness Design: Soulellis Studio Printed in the United States of America Boeing Catches a Lift with High Performance Computing 1 Boeing Catches a Lift with High Performance Computing Through the Department of Energy’s Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) competition, Boeing R&D researchers recently won a multi-issue, multi-industry, international competition for a grant to use the powerful supercomputers at Oak Ridge National Labo- ratory (ORNL), bolstering their access to Boeing’s own in-house high performance computing (HPC) capabilities. Access to the lab’s leadership class systems allows Boeing scientists and researchers to tackle problems that are beyond the reach of the company’s in-house supercomputers and HPC clusters. Because ORNL constantly upgrades its supercomputer capabilities, Boeing can also preview the latest in HPC hardware and software before adding new systems to their own data center. When it comes to high performance computing (HPC), Says Ball about his competitors, “The world has become Doug Ball, Boeing’s chief engineer for enabling technol- a really smart place—there are highly trained, highly intel- ogy and research, acts locally and thinks globally. And ligent people everywhere, and most of them have access from his perspective, competition on today’s global play- to high performance computing capabilities. Here in the ing field has changed radically. U.S., we no longer enjoy the advantage we had in the Marketplace pressures are becoming more intense, 1950s and 1960s relative to the rest of the globe. Today and accelerating the pace of design is essential in our competitors are just as capable of making innovative today’s aerospace marketplace. Although Airbus is the discoveries as we are.” Timing, therefore, has become only other manufacturer of commercial jetliners that critical—now the race is on to see which company will be seat more than 100 people, the market for short- and first to come up with a particular breakthrough discov- medium-range regional jets is becoming increasingly ery, incorporate it into their products and services and crowded with new entries from companies like Embraer capture the market. in Brazil, Sukhoi in Russia, Mitsubishi in Japan, Bom- Fortunately, U.S. and foreign researchers, including bardier in Canada, and a new regional jet from Chinese those in industry, have a tremendous opportunity, thanks firm ACAC, the ARJ-21. “Right now these regional to a now well-established Department of Energy (DOE) companies aren’t competing with us directly,” says Ball. program—the Innovative and Novel Computational Im- “But fast-forward several years, and it may be an entirely pact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) competition, different story.” now in its sixth year, is sponsored by the DOE’s Office Headquartered in Chicago, Boeing is the world’s lead- of Science. ing aerospace company and the largest manufacturer of Through a competitive, multi-issue, multi-industry commercial jetliners and military aircraft combined. The peer-review process, the program awards significant company employs more than 160,000 people across allocations on some of the world’s most powerful the United States and in 70 countries. With customers supercomputers to innovative, large-scale computa- in more than 90 countries, Boeing is one of the largest tional science projects to enable high-impact advances. U.S. exporters in terms of sales. Revenues in 2007 were Boeing is one of those awardees. nearly $66.4 billion. 2 Council on Competitiveness High Performance Computing Boeing Catches a Lift with High Performance Computing This image depicts a simulation of the unsteady effects on thrust reverser and helped Boeing determine how to improve predictions of re-ingestion, impingement and blanking effects. Scientists and engineers in Ball’s R&D group at Boeing the effect of aerodynamic loads on airplane structures. are performing complex basic research on problems Ball explains that when a wing is subjected to lift, loading related to some of the company’s most advanced com- causes the wing to deform—it tends to bend upward and mercial and military aircraft. His staff of 145 people twist. To get the best possible performance from the supports aerodynamic, propulsion, fuels and acoustic airplane, engineers use the wings aeroelasticity to obtain technology development. Pursuant to the terms of the maximum wing loading—this provides optimal lift and DOE program, research on non-proprietary projects is reduces drag that, in turn, lowers fuel consumption. This undertaken with the intent to publish the results in open is static aeroelasticity. The other physical condition under peer-reviewed literature. The results of proprietary proj- investigation is dynamic aeroelasticity, which occurs when ects are not published, but then the work is subject to the wing is subjected to sudden forces such as a wind negotiated terms with DOE, which include cost recovery gust. Designing the wing to handle oscillations induced by DOE. Whether published or proprietary, the results by these forces makes for a smoother and safer ride. of the basic research that INCITE enables ultimately “Of course, one way to solve the problem is to build a big, provide new tools, processes and technology ideas that beefy, super strong wing,” Ball says. “But a heavy wing Boeing development groups can use to design airplanes. is bad design—what we’re really trying to do is design a Currently the R&D group is investigating ways to improve wing with minimal weight that meets our design criteria. aircraft performance. They use computational modeling For example, one approach is to add more structure only and simulation to explore various design options before in those places that are taking the brunt of the static and building physical prototypes and conducting experimen- dynamic aeroelasticity forces. In addition, we are advanc- tal testing. Working with the INCITE program and Oak ing the state of the art in the use of composites.” Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) plays a major role in The Dreamliner® wing, the first Boeing product to make their work. significant use of composites, is lighter and safer than its metal predecessors, and its greater efficiency results in Investigating Aeroelasticity reduced fuel consumption and emissions. Understand- One of the areas Boeing researchers have modeled ing how these new materials can be used in future wing using ORNL’s supercomputers is aeroelasticity—that is, design is a major goal of Ball’s group. Boeing Catches a Lift with High Performance Computing 3 “Composites give us a whole new degree of freedom have access to the latest HPC hardware and software that we don’t have with aluminum structures,” he explains. in order to work with the latest equipment, tools and “The entire wing deformation process depends on how processes before purchasing new hardware for our own the carbon fibers are laid. By altering their patterns, we data center. Upgrading our in-house HPC capabilities should be able to tailor the structure of the wing to put involves major expenditures, so the ability to try before the load in the right places. This will allow us to achieve we buy is a huge plus.” minimum weight and maximum performance.” HPC’s Competitive Impact: Boeing Putting HPC to Work Taking Off Ball’s research group is no stranger to HPC. They have Here’s how Ball summarizes the major benefits of HPC: been using the most powerful systems available during “It lets engineers design better airplanes with fewer the past 30 years. Their most recent supercomputer, a resources, in less time, with far less physical simulation vector processing system that can accommodate thou- based on wind tunnel testing,” he says. “For example, sands of processors, is augmented by five Linux-based when we were designing the 767 back in the 1980s, HPC clusters with a total of 792 nodes. we built and tested about 77 wings. By using supercom- With the help of these supercomputers, the group uses puters to simulate the properties of the wings on recent numerical processes to investigate both the internal models such as the 787 and the 747-8, we only had to and external areas of the airplane.

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