Special
Features:
MAGMASOFT GRID CLUSTER DELIVERS
RESULTS AT
1/2 THE PRICE
Background
Nemak, a
producer of
aluminum cast automotive parts, needed a supercomputing
solution
that could
quickly simulate mold designs. With it's previous system,
Nemak
engineers had
to wait days in between simulations, which inflated
production
costs and
delivery times.
To combat this problem, Nemak installed a
Linux
Networx Evolocity grid cluster
running MAGMASOFT software that delivers
approximately 10-fold MagmaFILL marks
at half the price of their previous
solution. On an actual job, this grid
cluster decreased simulation time from
10.1 days to just 8.5 hours -- a 29
speed boost or 61x price/performance
improvement.
Challenge
In a business where a tenth of a
millimeter determines a product's success or
failure, Nemak, a producer of
aluminum cylinder heads and block castings for
the automotive industry, needed
a computing solution that could generate fast,
accurate results.
To
produce simulations, Nemak was running MAGMASOFT software on an SGI
Origin®
2000 supercomputer, but results were slow as the SGI machine could
only
process 2 simulations per week and Nemak averages ten simulations per
product.
"We were experiencing severe problems because the amount of
time it was taking
to process simulations prevented us from reaching the most
optimum mold
design, which directly affected our production costs and delivery
times," said
Carlos Esparza, production manager at Nemak.
"With so
much depending on the supercomputer, we knew we had to start looking
for a
different supercomputing solution to increase efficiency and product
quality."
Solution
To generate faster results and boost
customer confidence, Nemak needed both a
hardware and a software solution that
could decrease its flow simulation time
from days to just hours. Linux
Networx, a Linux grid cluster supercomputer
provider and MAGMA, a producer of
flow simulation software, joined efforts to
produce the Evolocity MAGMASOFT
Grid Cluster that reduced Nemak's casting
simulation time from 10.1 days, to
just 8.5 hours-a 29 fold improvement in
speed.
Considering their
previous system cost $350,000 versus their new Linux Networx
system for
$162,000, Nemak experienced a 61x price/performance improvement.
Rather than
agonizing over what simulation is worth running and waiting 10
days to
identify a possible improvement, Nemak can run 29 simulations and get
next-day
improvements.
Results
"These results were far better than
we
expected. The solution delivered from
Linux Networx and MAGMA radically
improves our ability to determine the right
production changes to raise yield
and overall quality," said Alejandro Valdez,
Product Engineering & Technology
Center Manager at Nemak.
"The price performance ratio also exceeded
our expectations since the Linux
Networx system cost almost half of what our
previous system did, and delivers
results thirty times faster."
Soon
after deploying the cluster solution, Nemak experienced immediate results
when
a product engineer requested three simulations for his product - a
request
that would have taken 18 days in the past. The Evolocity MAGMASOFT
Grid
Cluster performed those simulations in just two days, allowing the
engineer to
make a design change in the casting mold.
"The speed of the cluster
allows us to add more controls to the simulation
process, producing a more
accurate simulation," said Carlos.
"Being able to make quicker
decisions for better results has improved the
product's quality and delivery
to the client and results in significant cost
savings."
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