Ford Motor Co. of Dearborn, Mich., has joined the Cornell Theory Center's Corporate PartnershipProgram (CPP). Ford plans to apply CTC's high-performance computing capabilities in order to reduce the time it takes to bring a new car to market.

"We're eager to scale up the numerical simulations to help system design," said George Shih, a supervisor in Ford's Advanced Vehicle Technology group. "HPC will help us reduce the time from initial design to a new car rolling off the assembly line."

The physical prototyping of automotive parts and components is time-consuming and expensive. Physical prototypes also limit the number and accuracy of scenarios that engineers can initiate. The reduction of physical parts prototyping with numerical simulations is crucial in order to ensure U.S. auto industry competitiveness in a global market.

"The Cornell Theory Center looks forward to helping Ford accelerate its product development cycle with our advanced parallel computing capabilities," said Malvin H. Kalos, Theory Center director. "Our 512-node IBM RS/6000 SP and new high-performance storage system offer industry a unique, scalable environment to develop and test solutions to complex engineering problems ranging from computational fluid dynamics to crash simulations."

Ford's simulations will include under-body, under-hood, power trains, and exteriors. Software will be tested for scalability and performance. "The goal is to increase the accuracy of our simulation models without sacrificing the number and speed of simulation runs," Shih said.

When Ford incorporated in 1903, its staff of 10 people worked in a converted wagon factory in Detroit. Today, more than 338,000 men and women work in Ford factories, laboratories and offices around the world, and Ford products are sold in more than 200 nations and territories.

Ford is among 19 companies currently using CTC's advanced computing capabilities and staff expertise to accelerate their R&D and information technology initiatives.

CTC is one of four high-performance computing and communications centers supported by the National Science Foundation. Activities of the center are funded also by New York State, the Advanced Research Projects Agency, the National Center for Research Resources at the National Institutes of Health, IBM and other members of CTC's Corporate Partnership Program.