Intelligent Light has been recognized by International Data Corporation (IDC) with their HPC Innovation Excellence Award, presented at the SC12 supercomputing industry conference. IDC acknowledged the impact of the company’s work to develop computational fluid dynamics (CFD) workflows through the study of bicycle racing wheel aerodynamics.

The HPC Innovation Excellence Award recognizes noteworthy achievements by users of high performance computing (HPC) technologies. The program's main goals are to showcase return on investment (ROI) and scientific success stories involving HPC; to help other users better understand the benefits of adopting HPC and justify HPC investments, especially for small and medium-size businesses (SMBs); to demonstrate the value of HPC to funding bodies and politicians; and to expand public support for increased HPC investments.

Real-World Success with HPC Enabled CFD

Intelligent Light’s President and CEO Jeanne L. Mara says, “We exist to help make our customers successful with CFD. The business impact seen at Zipp Speed Weaponry is indicative of our ability to learn from our customers and help them reach their objectives. We thank IDC and all the sponsors for recognizing the work of our own Matthew Godo and that done by our customers at Zipp. We appreciate the trust of our customers and strive to help them achieve in their own businesses.”

“By applying state of the art CFD tools and practices along with commercially available technology, we achieved new insights into the aerodynamic performance of these wheels;” said Matthew N. Godo Ph. D., FieldView Product Manager at Intelligent Light. A CFD practitioner and author of the study, Godo developed a highly automated CFD workflow and utilized cloud-based HPC resources delivered by R Systems, Inc., and Dell Cloud Services to quickly generate sufficient CFD data to isolate effects that are not directly observable during physical testing. Using FieldView for post-processing and workflow automation, the results came in days, fast enough to meet Dr. Godo’s time constraints and to be usable by engineers developing products on uncompromising schedules.

When Zipp paired the resulting insight with their own innovative ideas, they were able to identify and develop a design that outperformed all existing designs in reducing aerodynamic drag. Moreover, the CFD allowed them to simultaneously design for stability and handling, characteristics previously sacrificed in pursuit of speed. The result was Firecrest, the fastest wheel ever built. Godo continues, “HPC and a productive CFD workflow will enable Zipp to create a sustainable competitive advantage because they understand why these new designs are superior, giving them the insight to develop successful next generation designs.”

Real-World Economic Benefits and ROI

Zipp introduced the revolutionary Firecrest wheels in 2010 and within two years they doubled their product category revenue in a segment they already dominated. They added over 120 new manufacturing jobs in Indiana to produce wheels to meet the new demand.

Josh Poertner, Technical Director at Zipp Speed Weaponry is enthusiastic. “We continue to spend the same on prototypes and development, but are finding that our prototypes are significantly more successful as we are able to cull hundreds of ideas into dozens, whereas before we would have to guess at the dozens of prototypes to produce. We are now optimizing for nearly twice the variables, which is only possible through CFD; however, we are optimizing twice the variables in the same amount of time.”

IDC's announcement of the winners included a supportive quote from the Council on Competitiveness. "The Council on Competitiveness would like to congratulate all the winners of the HPC Innovation Excellence Award and thank all of those who submitted entries. The significance of HPC to the private sector will only be fully appreciated when examples such as these are recognized for their economic value," said Dr. Cynthia McIntyre, Senior Vice President for the HPC Initiative at the Council on Competitiveness.