AUTOMOTIVE

HP technology enabled the team to perform design simulation of 1.3 terabytes of aerodynamic data. (One terabyte is a billion bytes, equivalent to 69,333 volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.) The results of the simulations have allowed the team to optimize solutions for front and rear wings, brake ducts and radiator ducts without the expense and time of fabrication or wind tunnel testing. The utility computing facility at HP Labs and the installation of a new HP cluster platform 4000 Supercomputer system as WilliamsF1's primary computing resource at their Grove, UK, headquarters have increased the team's computer modeling capabilities in 2005 by more than a factor of three. Sam Michael, technical director at WilliamsF1, explained some of the technological input made by HP: "Prediction, using computational fluid dynamics, was our main tool to assess the implications of the new FIA rules for the 2005 season, and to consider a wide range of potential solutions. Together with our partner HP, we have scaled up our computational resource by a factor of three. We augmented our in-house capability with the use of HP's Bristol Labs utility computing facility, which allows us to run computations using external resource at peak load times, such as during the new car design phase." HP provided further support in structural analysis and crash test simulations for the FW27, which were carried out in-house at Grove using HP Integrity systems. WilliamsF1 engineers are using the HP Labs utility computing facility to take structural and crash analysis to a new level of fidelity by creating sophisticated models of carbon fiber, which demands a tenfold increase in computer power. "HP is committed to further developing the partnership that started in 2000 with the BMW WilliamsF1 Team," said Andrew Collis, director, Global Sports Sponsorship, HP. "It is our aim to provide the team with the breadth and depth of technical expertise that HP has, making an invaluable contribution to their performance. Advanced HP service solutions will provide the BMW WilliamsF1 Team with 24-hour trackside support at all 19 Grand Prix races around the globe in 2005 as well as test sessions and at WilliamsF1 headquarters in Grove. Since 2000, HP has been the technology behind the BMW WilliamsF1 Team, providing a comprehensive range of products, technologies, solutions and services. These include: Linux-based supercomputing solutions, wireless local area network ( wLAN ), mobility computing, as well as printing and imaging technologies, which support the team across car design, performance management, manufacturing and telemetry.