>> Continued
Hackland said, "APC did their work in five days and then it was
just another week to connect it all up. Even supercomputers have
gone commodity now. It's just a case of mounting the 16-blade
chassis and hooking them up.
The tricky thing afterwards is making sure that the software
works and starting to optimise it. All of that takes time so the
actual assembly, optimisation and handing it to the users took us
six months."
The software is naturally the key component. Renault uses
CD-adapco's Star-CCM+ CFD package. "Star-CCM+ is an off-the-shelf
package which we've spent a lot of time customising but we are also
using code that we are developing in partnership with Phantom
Works, a Boeing company," Hackland explained.
60Terabytes of data
"On the IT side, Appro has supplied configuration software that
let's us have a view of the whole cluster so we can see if we have
any issues and it is really working well. For storage, we are
currently at 60TB of data which runs in a parallel
configuration."
It does not take much to lose a race. A hundredth of a second is
a long time in F1. In a race of around 190 miles, shaving off one
hundredth per lap would, in most cases, amount to over half a
second saved overall - possibly the difference between winning and
losing.
These fragments of time can be saved because of one of the four
key elements in F1: the driver, the tyres, the engine and the
aerodynamics. Drivers are the biggest variable and a lot of success
is a blend of good fortune and skill but, given a decent car, it is
their abilities that make the greatest difference.
Other factors
Again, Murray Walker once exclaimed, "That's not four tenths of
a second. Look at it, it's Michael Schumacher."
No matter how good the driver is, the car has to be in the best
possible shape. All the teams get their tyres from Bridgstone so it
is a case of choosing the right grade at the right time.
As far as consistency is concerned, it is the engine and the
aerodynamics that have to be tuned to perfection for every kind of
weather and track conditions.
This year the focus is on aerodynamics. Rear wings are narrower
and positioned higher than last season and can be adjusted from the
cockpit.
Features such as turning vanes, winglets and bargeboards that
assisted air flow have been stripped away and under-floor diffusers
moved up and back towards the rear of the cars.
CFD software
These changes determine the shape of the 2009 cars and, for
Renault, the new supercomputer is its latest tool to ensure that
there is as little drag on the car as possible.
Aerodynamics is the most complex element of the car because wind
resistance at one part of the track becomes a cross wind at others
or a potentially helpful tail wind elsewhere. Changes in wind
direction when cornering and "dirty air", or turbulence created by
other cars, also have to be considered and their effects
minimised.
The decision to use CFD software rather than build a second wind
tunnel, an approach adopted by other F1 teams, was a major gamble
because initially there seemed to be no cost advantage and the
technology was new to Renault.
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