New supercomputer will advance engine research

A unique partnership helped the university’s Engine Research Center buy a new supercomputer that will invigorate its engine simulation work.

The $1.4 million Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI) computer was installed and tested in April at the College of Engineering center, and will increase the computational power available to researchers by 16-fold.

The purchase of the Origin 2000 was made possible by an in-kind gift from SGI and grant support from the Wisconsin Department of Commerce. SGI provided $340,000 toward the computer’s cost and an educational-use discount. And the state Technology Development Fund provided a $315,000 grant to the company, which also went toward the computer purchase.

Jay Martin, a mechanical engineering professor and ERC director, says the generous support of the state and SGI made this advance possible.

“We plan to make this a showcase for high-performance computing,” Martin says. “The assistance from the state and from SGI will help us demonstrate advanced computing applications for industry.”

Simulating engine functions such as combustion can help the ERC answer questions about the basic principles of engine performance. That’s a first step in designing engines that run cleaner and more fuel-efficiently.

The ERC has a core $11 million, five-year grant from the Department of Defense and does a majority of its research on diesel engines. A research group of about 40 faculty, staff and students will have projects on the machine.

Wisconsin benefits from the purchase, Martin says, because it enhances research for the state’s extensive small-engine manufacturing industry. Since 1993, the engineering college has run the Wisconsin Small Engines Consortium to improve the fuel efficiency and emissions of engines for everything from lawn mowers to boats. Member companies include Briggs and Stratton, Mercury Marine, Tecumseh and Harley Davidson.

Commerce Secretary Brenda J. Blanchard says the department was pleased to support SGI’s effort to upgrade the center’s technology. “The ERC is a leader in the development of engine simulation technologies and collaborates with numerous automotive, diesel and small-engine manufacturers,” she says.

The Origin 2000 will allow the ERC to do much bigger jobs with a faster turnover than with its current Cray Research Inc. computer, says mechanical engineering associate professor and ERC researcher Chris Rutland. The Origin 2000 has 32 processors compared to the Cray’s eight.

When the ERC purchased the Wisconsin-built Cray back in 1994, it was the first Cray purchased by a state institution. It will now be devoted to running computations on single, large-scale projects, he says.

SGI is based in Mountain View, Calif. and operates a plant in Chippewa Falls, Wis. Cray formerly ran the Wisconsin plant until SGI purchased the company in 1996. The plant specializes in the manufacture of high-performance supercomputers for scientific and industrial use.