Royal Enfield uses Altair OptiStruct™ for non-linear implicit finite element (FE) analysis and Altair Radioss™ for explicit FE analysis. These FE models require extensive processing for completing structural analysis. Engineers were running FE analysis workloads on workstations, however the length of time required for processing was becoming a serious bottleneck in the design process.
The team was aware that a purpose-built HPC system could dramatically improve processing times, but the workstation-based CAE team was hesitating due to the perceived effort and skills required to set up, run and manage an HPC system.
To overcome these challenges, Royal Enfield recently made a move to accelerate its product engineering cycles by deploying Altair HyperWorks Unlimited, a fully-managed HPC system for CAE built on Dell EMC PowerEdge servers with Intel® Xeon® Scalable® processors and PowerSwitch networking. This plug-and-play system gives Royal Enfield engineers unlimited use of all Altair HyperWorks software applications plus Altair PBS Works HPC workload management software, while reducing the time and cost to enable full-scale HPC for engineering.
“The Altair HyperWorks Unlimited appliance was easy to adopt, and it removed the business-limiting bottleneck that a workstation-based approach had become,” said Rod Giles, Head of CAE & CAD for Royal Enfield. “In a two-day period, our Altair HyperWorks Unlimited appliance was in production and the team fully trained. We have been delighted with how reliable it has been at making us more productive, without being a burden to manage.”
With the new system, engineers can continue to submit and review jobs exactly as they previously did on their workstations, eliminating the learning curve. And day-to-day IT management is minimal because the appliance is managed by Altair. In addition, HyperWorks Unlimited enables Royal Enfield to scale between on-premises and cloud-based appliances as needed.
Royal Enfield has found that the solution enables significant increases in productivity — including 15X faster run times and a 25 percent reduction in the number of prototypes. Software licensing fees have been reduced, along with the need to purchase and maintain desktop workstations.
For manufacturers interested in adopting or expanding HPC, Dell Technologies also offers Ready Solutions for HPC Digital Manufacturing, which include a scalable architecture created specifically for Altair HyperWorks digital manufacturing workloads, to enhance performance for CAE applications. It uses a flexible approach to HPC system design, where individual building blocks can be combined to build HPC systems that are optimized specifically for Altair HyperWorks workloads and use cases.
