Automotive Enterprise Finds Efficiency with Rescale and STAR-CCM+ Power-on-Demand
Technology Category
- Analytics & Modeling - Digital Twin / Simulation
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Computing
Applicable Industries
- Automotive
- Oil & Gas
Use Cases
- Additive Manufacturing
- Manufacturing Process Simulation
Services
- Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services
- Hardware Design & Engineering Services
About The Customer
American Axle & Manufacturing is a leading global Tier 1 automotive supplier. They operate in 13 countries globally with annual revenues of $3.9 billion. Their clients are all the major automotive companies. They supply driveline and drivetrain systems, for example front axles, rear axles, PTUs, and eDrive units. They use computational fluid dynamics to simulate the lubrication process in their products, aiming to optimize the way oil goes onto bearings or gears inside their products. These simulations are complex and require significant computing resources.
The Challenge
American Axle & Manufacturing, a leading global Tier 1 automotive supplier, was facing challenges with their simulation needs. They use computational fluid dynamics to simulate the lubrication process, aiming to optimize the way oil goes onto bearings or gears inside their products. These simulations are complex and require significant computing resources. Their models required anywhere between 32 to 150 cores to run, dictating the size of the server needed. Before using Rescale, they had a single server with 64 cores. The main challenge was the scalability of hardware requirement. To optimize a specific axle, they needed to conduct several runs, which could be different angles of inclination of a moving car or an SUV driving at different speeds. Depending on how soon they needed an answer, they might want to run a number of these jobs simultaneously, instead of waiting to run them one by one.
The Solution
Rescale provided the solution to American Axle & Manufacturing's challenges. Rescale offers the on-demand capability to scale up hardware resources almost infinitely. This allowed American Axle & Manufacturing to do large numbers of runs in parallel in a very limited number of days. One of the important factors in their decision to choose Rescale was the availability of a code from CD-adapco called STAR-CCM+. Rescale has an established relationship with CD-adapco, which allowed American Axle & Manufacturing to use the software licenses provided by CD-adapco efficiently in conjunction with the hardware provided by Rescale. This is called the Power-on-Demand license. They only utilize it when they have to run a large number of projects, and they are not billed when they are not running. This was a very efficient way for them to use their software and hardware resources. Another thing they liked about Rescale was the willingness of the company to install new software.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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